RALEIGH, N.C. (Legal Newsline) — North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein announced May 21 that he filed a complaint against Insys Therapeutics Inc. for allegations of deceptive marketing and sales practices in violation of the Fair Claims Act.
Insys conducted a kickback scheme designed to increase prescriptions for Subsys, a highly potent fentanyl painkiller that helps treat cancer, according to allegations. Insys purportedly convinced doctors and nurse practitioners to prescribe Subsys in exchange for speaker payments for phony speeches, jobs for family members and friends, lavish meals, and entertainment.
“In a reckless pursuit of profits, Insys used speaker fees to reward doctors for prescribing a powerful, addictive opioid to North Carolinians,” Stein said in a statement. “They helped fuel a national opioid crisis that’s taken the lives of millions of Americans, and they cheated taxpayers. I will do everything in my power to hold Insys accountable.”
Fentanyl is 50 times stronger than heroin and 100 times stronger than morphine.
Stein is joined in the states’ intervention complaint filed in the Central District of California by the attorneys general of Colorado, New York, Virginia, California and Indiana.