WASHINGTON, Dec 15 (AFP) - Serono Laboratories Inc., the US subsidiary of Swiss pharmaceutical group Serono SA, pleaded guilty and was sentenced Thursday on US criminal charges over the illegal marketing of its AIDS drug Serostim.
The Justice Department announced the plea and sentencing, which settles an agreement announced in October between the US government and the Swiss group.
Under its terms, Serono and its US subsidiaries agreed to pay 704 million dollars to settle criminal and civil allegations of fraud to boost sales of a Serostim for AIDS patients.
Following Serono's plea, a federal judge ordered Serono to pay a 137 million dollar criminal fine. The company will also pay 567 million dollars to settle its civil liabilities.
The settlement followed a probe of how Serono was marketing Serostim, which is used to treat AIDS wasting, a condition involving involuntary weight loss in AIDS patients.
US officials said Serono conspired with the maker of an unapproved medical device to calculate the loss of body cell mass "in order to increase the market for Serostim."
Under the settlement, Serono Laboratories pleaded guilty to offering physicians an all-expense-paid trip to a medical conference in Cannes, France.
The government said Serono offered to pay the doctors' expenses in return for the physicians' writing up to 30 new prescriptions of Serotism to the tune of 630,000 dollars. Each treatment was costed at 21,000 dollars.
Serono Laboratories will be excluded from all US federal health care programs for at least five years under the settlement while government health programs will be able to recoup all monies paid out in relation to the scheme.
051215
AF051243
Copyright ©AFP 2005. All Rights Reserved. AFP articles contained on the AEGiS web site may not be reproduced, distributed, transmitted, displayed, published or broadcast without AFP's prior written permission. You may make one copy of each article for your personal, non-commercial use only; more copies would require AFP's prior written permission. obtained from the owners of any trademarks or copyrighted materials whose marks and materials are included in AFP photos or materials. Therefore you will be solely responsible for obtaining any and all necessary releases from whatever individuals and/or entities necessary for any uses of AFP stories, photos or graphics. http://www.afp.com/
AEGiS is a 501(c)3, not-for-profit, tax-exempt, educational corporation. AEGiS is made possible through unrestricted grants from Boehringer Ingelheim, Elton John AIDS Foundation, the National Library of Medicine, Bridgestone Firestone Trust Fund, and donations from users like you. Always watch for outdated information. This article first appeared in 2005. This material is designed to support, not replace, the relationship that exists between you and your doctor.
©1990, 2005 - AEGiS. AEGiS presents published material, reprinted with permission and neither endorses nor opposes any material. All materials appearing on AEGiS are protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under U.S. copyright and other laws and are the property of AEGiS, or the party credited as the provider of the content.
