Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Health sued a global marketing company Publicis for engaging in unfair and deceptive marketing schemes to help a pain medication maker to market and sell certain pain medications that are addictive painkillers. The work included creating sales training materials and emails and other information distributed to prescribers to...
Category: News
Compliance Issues with Overcoming “Friction” in the Sale of Expensive Pharmaceutical Products
By Gregg Shapiro
The pharmaceutical distribution and reimbursement system in the United States has many inherent “friction points” that discourage unnecessary use of expensive pharmaceutical products. Because having a robust compliance program makes good business sense,[1] compliance professionals in the pharmaceutical industry should understand the dynamics of these friction points and be aware of the...
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Newman & Shapiro featured in Reuters: Ex-prosecutor behind mega pharma cases co-founds whistleblower firm
A former federal prosecutor who helped recover billions of dollars in settlements from drugmakers and other companies accused of fraud is launching a new whistleblower law firm with another attorney.
Gregg Shapiro, who was heading an industry-wide probe of drugmakers’ financial support of patient assistance charities before leaving the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Massachusetts, is...
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Coinbase pays $6.5 million to settle charges by CFTC of fraudulent “wash trades” in Bitcoin and Litecoin
The US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Friday digital asset exchange Coinbase Inc paid $6.5 million to settle charges it reported misleading transaction data that potentially inflated the apparent trading volume on its professional GDAX platform. The fine was issued for “wash trades” in litecoin and bitcoin by a former Coinbase employee...
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U.S. files major False Claims Complaint against Teva Pharma over hundreds of millions of $ in kickbacks to sell Multiple Sclerosis drug Copaxone
The United States has filed a major False Claims Act complaint against Teva Pharmaceuticals USA Inc. and Teva Neuroscience Inc. (Teva), alleging that they illegally paid the Medicare co-pays for their multiple sclerosis (MS)...
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Google censorship program in China Project Dragonfly shocks employees and human rights activists
Google has developed a program which censors its search engine for China codenamed and the controversial program is codename “Dragonfly.” What it does is to link users’ search history to their personal phone numbers, according to media reports. Internal documents leaked to journalists described how the search platform can block internet users in China...
COMING WEEK: White House to announce $200 Billion in new tariffs on China’s consumer goods and hi tech products on Monday says WSJ
The White House is prepared to announce on Monday or Tuesday that the U.S. will levy new tariffs on $200 billion of Chinese goods, according to the Wall Street Journal. The upcoming tariffs is expected to be set on internet technology products and other electronics, printed circuit boards, and consumer goods including...
Accuser of Brett Kavanaugh, Professor Christine Blasey Ford identifies herself as accuser and author of letter
The woman who accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of forcing himself on her when they were in high school has come forward, detailing that the Washington Post Kavanaugh pinned her down, groped her over her clothes, and tried to take off her bathing suit and outer clothing in an assault. Christine...
New sanctions on Russian firms issued by U.S. Treasury over threats to undersea cables
As a result of Russia's increased interest in undersea cables which serve to operate the internet worldwide, the U.S. Treasury Department has placed two individuals and two companies on its sanctions list. It did so because they aided a Russian firm Divetechnoservices which helped improve Russia's underwater surveillance abilities by buying undersea equipment and...
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U.S./China trade war tariffs hit $34 billion of goods but will spike China counterfeiters which cost makers over $1.7 trillion each year
The trade war between the United States and China now affects over $34 billion worth of goods on either side. The increased costs to imports is expected to cause consumers to look for cheaper versions of products and spike the Chinese counterfeit trade which has a present global value of $1.7...
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