U.S. Attorney Charges Five Doctors With Taking Bribes, Kickbacks From Insys to Prescribe Fentanyl

Five Manhattan doctors accepted kickbacks and bribes from Insys to prescribe its fentanyl products, according to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman said Insys paid the doctors to prescribe millions of dollars’ worth of Subsys, the company’s fentanyl painkiller spray, with payments to the doctors exceeding $100,000 annually in some cases.

The indictment claims the company set up a fraudulent speakers bureau to conceal the payments, ostensibly for conducting slide presentations about the drug that never actually occurred, and forging attendance sign-in sheets for such events, in many cases by adding the names of doctors who were not present. The “presentations” were in most cases simply social meetings at restaurants, according to Berman’s office.