From March 2020 through September 2022, Biohaven wielded meals at high-end restaurants and paid speaking opportunities to induce healthcare providers to prescribe its migraine therapy Nurtec ODT, according to the Department of Justice.
Pfizer has agreed to pay more than $59.7 million to resolve cases regarding an alleged kickback scheme surrounding Biohaven Pharma and its migraine drug Nurtec ODT, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Friday.
In its press release, the DOJ accused Biohaven of “knowingly” causing the submission of false claims to Medicare and other federal programs “by paying kickbacks to health care providers to induce prescriptions of” Nurtec ODT.
Biohaven ran its scheme from March 1, 2020 through September 30, 2022, during which time it paid “improper remuneration” to healthcare professionals, including speaker honoraria and meals at high-end restaurants, according to the DOJ. Biohaven’s speakers, the department said, were given paid speaking opportunities “with the intent that the speaker honoraria and meals would induce them to prescribe Nurtec ODT.”
Moreover, the DOJ’s suit claimed that many prescribers attended multiple programs but “received no educational benefit from attending repeat programs.” Certain Biohaven programs also involved participants “with no educational need to attend,” including family, friends and colleagues of speakers.
Of note, the DOJ contends that this program persisted until October 2022, when Pfizer closed its $11.6 billion acquisition of Biohaven.
Kickback allegations against Biohaven had been made public prior to Pfizer’s acquisition announcement in May 2022. In August 2021, former Biohaven employee Patricia Frattasio filed a whistleblower lawsuit against the biotech, alleging that it had violated the False Claims Act and the Anti-Kickback Statute.
Biohaven, according to Frattasio, induced “others to submit fraudulent bills to the Government by knowingly providing remuneration in the form of improper speaker program honoraria; ad hoc kickbacks; electronic health record software cost assistance; and copay cards.” The suit alleged that these “quid quo pro arrangements … involve the provision of financial benefits in return for referrals of business, which result in reimbursement from federal and state health care programs.”
Friday’s settlement agreement will also resolve Frattasio’s whistleblower suit and will give the former Biohaven employee around $8.4 million as her share of the federal recovery.
“Patients deserve to know that their doctor is prescribing medications based on their doctor’s medical judgment, and not as a result of financial incentives from pharmaceutical companies,” Trini Ross, U.S. Attorney for the Western District of New York, said in the Friday announcement.
Pfizer’s acquisition of Biohaven has been fruitful for the pharma. In March 2023, the FDA approved the nasal spray Zavzpret—which the biotech had originally been developing—for the acute treatment of migraine. In its third-quarter 2024 report, Pfizer disclosed that Nurtec ODT had earned $337 million in that quarter, representing 45% year-on-year growth.
