BOSTON, Massachusetts, Dec 15 (AFP) - A former director of a Swiss pharmaceutical group was charged Wednesday for rewarding US doctors with trips to France in exchange for prescribing a Serono AIDS medicine, prosecutors said.
Adam Stupak, Serono's former director of sales in New York, offered doctors all-expenses-paid trips to an AIDS conference on France's Cote d'Azure, the US Justice Department said in a statement.
Three doctors were rewarded for prescribing Serono's Serostim, in order to boost the drug's flagging sales. The company's goal was to sell six million dollars of product in six days.
"When a pharmaceutical employee offers a doctor a kickback to prescribe a drug, that individual invades the trust between the doctor and the patient and deprives the patient of his right to have the doctor act in the patient's best interest in providing quality health care," US Attorney Michael Sullivan said in a statement.
If found guilty, Stupak could face up to five years in prison and a fine of 75,000 dollars for each kickback, the Justice Department said.
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