(LEGAFI) -- Genentech, Inc. has been ordered to pay $20 million to settle a qui tam whistleblower lawsuit accusing the company of providing illegal kickbacks for off-label marketing of its cancer-fighting drug Rituxan. The settlement will reportedly net $5.7 million for the whistleblower.

 

The Genentech whistleblower lawsuit was filed in July 2003 by John Underwood, a former senior manager of sales development at Genentech who worked for the company from 1986 through January 2005. 

 

Underwood alleged in the Genentech whistleblower lawsuit that the company encouraged oncologists and other physicians and medical providers to bill Medicare and other government reimbursement programs for Rituxan for "off-label" uses and to represent that the use was the result of an independent medical judgement. He also accused the company of providing kickbacks to doctors that were disguised as consulting payments, exerting "significant pressure" on sales reps to increase off-label uses of Rituxan, and conducting "selling skills workshops" for sales reps devoted to non-label uses.

 

Sales reps were also reportedly given financial incentives to get doctors who sold the most Rituxan to attend "medical education seminars" at "luxurious locations."

 

Rituxan was approved by the FDA in November 1997 for patients with relapsed or refractory, low-grade non-Hodgkins lymphoma. Its label was expanded in April 2001 for other non-Hodgkins lymphoma patients.

 

Underwood claims in the whistleblower lawsuit that Genentech encouraged off-label use of Rituxan for other types of non-Hodgkins lymphoma patients as well as for patients with chronic lymphoctic leukemia, rheumatoid arthritis, autoimmune hemolytic anemia, and others.