On April 28, 2017, the District Court for the District of Massachusetts dismissed a qui tam complaint alleging off-label promotion against a pharmaceutical manufacturer.  Dismissal was a sanction for relator’s counsel having devised and implemented what the Court called “an elaborate scheme of deceptive conduct in order to obtain information from physicians about their prescribing practices, and in some instances about their patients.”

Relator filed his initial complaint in 2012, alleging that the manufacturer was promoting off-label use of two drugs and paying physicians kickbacks for prescribing those drugs.  While the case was under seal, the relator filed an amended complaint adding detail to his allegations and including a reference to a third drug.  After the United States declined to intervene and the case was unsealed in April 2014, relator filed a second amended complaint that focused only on alleged off-label promotion of the third drug.

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