DOJ Charges Former Executives of Insys Therapeutics, Puma Biotechnology

The Department of Justice indicted two executives from separate pharmaceutical companies, alleging that one engaged in a kickback scheme and the other relied on confidential study findings to purchase and sell stock.

Jeffrey Pearlman, a former district sales manager for Insys Therapeutics, was arrested and charged with engaging in a kickback scheme to boost sales of the company’s only FDA-approved product, Subsys, between September 2012 and December 2015.

Pearlman is the third employee to face charges in connection with his alleged involvement in a sham speaker program that paid doctors, nurses and physician assistants thousands of dollars as an incentive to prescribe the fentanyl sublingual spray.