On January 31, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser announced that the state, along with the federal government and 38 other states, has settled a lawsuit against a Pfizer subsidiary for illegal kickbacks to physicians for prescribing migraine drugs. Biohaven is the pharmaceutical company that was being sued for allegedly holding fraudulent seminars as a way of paying physicians kickbacks disguised as speaking fees. The speeches and kickback payments took place between March 2020 and October 2022, and the program stopped when Pfizer acquired the company in October 2022.
There were four Colorado front-range physicians who were listed as allegedly accepting kickbacks from Biohaven for issuing prescriptions. The court documents state that care providers received between $1,125 and $5,000 per speech. Dr. Michael Ament of Denver completed 15 speeches for Biohaven between March and September of 2020. Dr. Judy Lane of Englewood completed 14 speeches during the same time frame and had two more scheduled. Dr. Tamara Miller of Fort Collins completed 14 speeches and had three more scheduled. Dr. Ravi Shah of Parker completed 19 between March and November of the same year.
The information came from a whistleblower, Patricia Frattasio, who was a sales rep for the company. According to the court documents, sales reps were reprimanded for not spending a minimum of $5,000 hosting virtual speeches each month. There were more non-providers invited to the sessions to “fill seats.” Sales reps were directed to pay physicians for scheduled speeches even if no attendees signed up or arrived to the virtual sessions.
The open payments data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) shows Dr. Ament reported three payments from Biohaven in 2020, totaling $145.20, indicating he did not report the 15 speaker payments he received from Biohaven. He received a total of $146,478.86 in 2020, most of it coming from Eli Lilly. Dr. Judy Lane reported over $51,000 in payments in 2020, but none of that is attributed to Biohaven despite the 14 speeches she reportedly completed for the company.
Dr. Tamara Miller received over $142,000 in payments in 2020, including just two payments from Biohaven. One of those payments was for food and beverage, while the other was $1,500 for “compensation for services other than consulting, including serving as faculty or as a speaker at a venue other than a continuing education program.” Dr. Ravi Shah received over $184,000 in 2020, including eight payments from Biohaven totaling $4,827.38.
Dr. Ament also conducts research and was the lead author on a study funded by Eli Lilly. One co-author was a former employee of Eli Lilly and the rest were employees of the company at the time of publication. The study states that Dr. Ament “is a consultant for Eli Lilly and Company, Biohaven, and Impel, and is on speaker bureaus for Allergan/AbbVie, Amgen Inc., Biohaven Pharmaceuticals, electroCore Inc., Eli Lilly and Company, Alder/Lundbeck, and Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries.”
Dr. Miller was listed as a speaker at a pain conference sponsored by Eli Lilly, Biohaven, and other pharmaceutical companies. Dr. Lane is also a co-author on research studies, but no conflicts of interest are disclosed.
There are federal laws that criminalize kickbacks for physicians, but in this case, no action has been brought against the individual physicians named in the court documents.
