Bay­er agrees to pay $40M to set­tle kick­back, safe­ty claims sparked by whistle­blow­er

More than a decade af­ter its first day in court, Bay­er is fi­nal­ly set­tling two De­part­ment of Jus­tice whistle­blow­er cas­es.

The fed­er­al agency an­nounced Fri­day that Bay­er agreed to pay a $40 mil­lion fine to re­solve “al­leged vi­o­la­tions of the False Claims Act in con­nec­tion with the drugs Tra­sy­lol, Avelox and Bay­col.”

The set­tle­ment was sparked by two whistle­blow­er law­suits, both filed by ex-Bay­er mar­ket­ing em­ploy­ee Lau­rie Simp­son in a saga go­ing back close to 15 years. The for­mer em­ploy­ee filed a case in 2008 against Bay­er, which was lat­er trans­ferred to the dis­trict court in Min­neso­ta. In that case, the em­ploy­ee al­leged that the phar­ma’s statin drug, Bay­col, caused risks of rhab­domy­ol­y­sis, a life-threat­en­ing com­pli­ca­tion of cer­tain drugs that oc­curs when mus­cles break down in­to the blood.

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