Feds: Pharmaceutical exec, VA doctors conspired in fraud

Discussion in 'Mimedx' started by anonymous, Mar 21, 2016 at 11:04 AM.

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  1. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    Feds: Pharmaceutical exec, VA doctors conspired in fraud
    PROSECUTORS SAY DOCTORS RECEIVED EXTRAVAGANT TRIPS, DEF LEPPARD TICKETS TO PROMOTE BIOENGINEERED BANDAGE TO COLLEAGUES

    A former pharmaceutical company executive bribed Veterans Affairs Department doctors in Washington state and elsewhere, paying VA employees thousands of dollars to promote his employer's products, federal prosecutors say.

    Prosecutors claim Advanced BioHealing Inc. executive Todd Clawson and others paid kickbacks to VA podiatrists and clinicians who promoted the company’s product, a “biologic” wound dressing. Clawson has been charged with bribery and health care fraud.

    Writing the court, federal prosecutors in Tacoma said Clawson, his coworkers at Advanced BioHealing and VA physicians conspired to “defraud the United States by impeding and impairing the governmental functions of the VA, including those intended to regulate the ethical practice of physicians working for the VA.”


    Advanced BioHealing, a decade-old Westport, Connecticut company, produces a “living skin equivalent” dressing meant to treat diabetes-related foot sores. The firm was awarded a large federal contract for the product – Dermagraft – in late 2008 shortly after Clawson went to work there.

    According to charging papers, Clawson served as director of the Advanced BioHealing division selling to the federal government. As such, he managed a team of 35 salespersons and was primarily concerned with selling the bioengineered bandages to the VA.

    Advanced BioHealing Inc. made waves in 2011 when an Irish pharmaceutical concern, Shire Plc., bought the company for $750 million. It had been slated to go public the day after the sale went through.

    The sale was a near total bust for Shire. It sold Advanced BioHealing in 2014 to Massachusetts-based Organogenesis after recording a $650 million loss on the venture. The fraud allegations do not extend beyond August 2012, when Clawson left the firm.

    Clawson and others are alleged to have paid to fly a Phoenix VA doctor to Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, for a days-long fishing trip in August 2010. According to charging papers, Clawson also plied a VA doctor with Def Leppard tickets in 2011.

    Prosecutors say doctors were taken fishing in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, wined and dined in Los Vegas and flown around the country to promote Dermagraft. At least three VA doctors are said to have been flown to Seattle in 2010 to promote the bandages.

    Writing the court, federal prosecutors said Clawson and others concocted seemingly legitimate reasons to pay thousands of dollars to VA doctors who promoted Dermagraft to their colleagues. Doctors were paid as much as $3,000 to attend “speaking engagements” at dinners paid for by Advanced BioHealing and attended by other VA staff.

    “These events usually took place at a restaurant where the company, and in some instances the VA speaker, would solicit VA personnel to attend, the company would pay for their meals,” Assistant U.S. Attorney David Reese Jennings said in court papers.


    The speaking engagements were held off VA property outside of work hours, Jennings continued, but Advanced BioHealing “lured VA physicians and clinicians to attend by supplying all invited guests with free meals at expensive restaurants.”

    Advanced BioHealing paid VA doctors $1,500 a day to allow sales reps to accompany them as they treated veterans at VA facilities, according to charging papers. Doctors were paid $3,000 to provide “sales training” to Advanced BioHealing staff, the prosecutors continued, and $2,000 to serve on an “advisory board.”

    Clawson and his colleagues are alleged to have paid doctors in Washington, California, Arizona, Ohio, Texas and Georgia.

    Clawson was charged by information Thursday with conspiracy to commit criminal conflicts of interest, bribery and health care fraud. He has also been charged with one count of health care fraud.

    Clawson is expected to appear Monday morning for an initial appearance at U.S. District Court in Seattle. He has not been jailed.
     

  2. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    who will first to get an invitation
     
  3. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

     
  4. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    I wonder if Ricky P is going down now? Isn't he your VP? He the one with a credit card on file at Maestros for his VA chief, Cabo trips, and fishing trips with his VA Phx docs.
     
  5. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    Providing Todd is right many of you will also be visited.
     
  6. anonymous

    anonymous Guest

    short term gains in our hiring are going to be costly