''We are pleased to put the matter behind us," said Thomas G. Gunning, Seronos' general counsel.
Put what behind them, Insider asks?
Just the small matter of agreeing to pay $704 million to settle criminal and civil charges that it illegally promoted its AIDS drug, prosecutors said yesterday, in one of the biggest sums collected in the US government's growing scrutiny of pharmaceutical firms.
The company plead guilty to charges it conspired to market Serostim by supplying doctors diagnostic software that was not fully approved by the FDA. The software, prosecutors said, led to an increase in demand for the drug prescribed to treat wasting in AIDS patients.
Serono also agreed to plead guilty to offering doctors all-expense-paid trips to a medical conference in Cannes, France, in return for writing prescriptions of Serostim, an arrangement that US Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales blasted as ''The 'Cannes Kickback' campaign."
Court filings, yesterday, named five former employees who blew the whistle about the wrongdoing. They include former sales representatives Christine Driscoll of Massachusetts and Frank Garcia, 41, of Connecticut, and three people from Maryland including Kimberly Jackson, a former Serono regional director.
Garcia's attorney, Robert Thomas of Boston, described him as pleased with the settlement. ''He filed this case at great personal risk to himself and his career, and is enormously gratified to see that his actions have helped make the industry's practices better."
Mr Garcia expects to receive more than $10 million in the settlement.
Insider suggests that a vacation in Cannes might be an appropriate way to celebrate!
Source: Boston Globe
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