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Novartis pays $729 mln in U.S. kickback charges

Illegal kickbacks to doctors and patients to boost drug sales.

That's landed drugmaker Novartis with more than 729 million dollars in charges to the U.S. department of justice.

Under the settlement announced on Wednesday (July 1) Novartis will pay $678 million to resolve claims it organised tens of thousands of sham educational events.

During these gatherings, doctors were lavished with exorbitant speaker fees, expensive dinners and alcohol, in a bid to induce them to prescribe its cardiovascular and diabetes drugs more often.

Novartis will also pay $51.25 million to resolve charges it funneled money through three charitable foundations to cover co-payments of Medicare patients so they would purchase its drugs.

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The Justice Department said the speaker programs and other promotional events occurred between 2002 to 2011.

The co-payments were made between 2010 to 2014.

Novartis has agreed to stop its speaker programs and enter a five-year corporate integrity agreement.

In a statement it said "We are a different company today -- with new leadership, a stronger culture and a more comprehensive commitment to ethics"