Serono, Inc., the Swiss manufacturer of the AIDS treatment drug Serostim®, reached a then record settlement with the Department of Justice and several state Attorneys General, agreeing to pay $704 million and plead guilty to scheming to boost sagging sales by, among other things, offering kickbacks to doctors to write prescriptions. As part of the plea, Serono Laboratories was barred from participating in federal health care programs for five years, paid a criminal fine of $136.9 million, and paid $567 million to resolve its civil liabilities under the False Claims Act. Serono also entered into a Corporate Integrity Agreement with HHS-OIG.
Serostim, which contains the human growth hormone Somatropin, was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1996 to treat AIDS wasting, an often-fatal condition involving severe weight loss. At about the time the FDA approved the drug, protease inhibitor drugs came on the market. Those drugs, when used in combinations or “cocktails,” sharply curtailed the AIDS virus in patients, making them less prone to AIDS wasting.
Serono offered doctors free trips to the south of France in return for agreeing to write up to 30 new prescriptions for Serostim, which cost $21,000 for a 12-week treatment regimen. The company also conspired to introduce a new test for AIDS wasting, despite not having FDA approval. The test diagnosed AIDS wasting even in the absence of weight loss, with the United States estimating that 85 percent of the resulting Serostim prescriptions were unnecessary.