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Post by agedhippie on Apr 29, 2017 16:17:20 GMT -5
Mannkind has hired nurse educators. I would think that part of what they would be doing is educating doctors and nurses at Endo and PCP offices so they can educate patients about using Afrezza. This lawsuit, based on my reading through only about 25% of the complaint, seems to be classifying education of a doctor about a drug as an illegal kickback. My impression is that the lawsuit asserts that calling them "nurse educators" when, in fact, they are being used to promote a specific product is fraudulent. They say it was illegal to pay the NEs to "induce PCPs to prescribe Novo's products." I suppose they're okay as as long as they don't get paid by a pharma. Stupid thing is that the "inducement to prescribe" is that they train the doctor's staff so they are familiar with the product. This is exactly what Dexcom, Medtronics, Animas, Insulet, and all the other diabetes DME manufacturers do. They also train the patient which apparently is also illegal.
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Post by ssiegel on Apr 29, 2017 16:32:14 GMT -5
My impression is that the lawsuit asserts that calling them "nurse educators" when, in fact, they are being used to promote a specific product is fraudulent. They say it was illegal to pay the NEs to "induce PCPs to prescribe Novo's products." I suppose they're okay as as long as they don't get paid by a pharma. Stupid thing is that the "inducement to prescribe" is that they train the doctor's staff so they are familiar with the product. This is exactly what Dexcom, Medtronics, Animas, Insulet, and all the other diabetes DME manufacturers do. They also train the patient which apparently is also illegal. I suspect it would be legal as long as they didn't call themselves "nurse educators," but simply manufacturer/pharma reps. The suit complains that calling them nurse educators gave greater access to and more influence over the physicians.
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Post by dreamboatcruise on Apr 29, 2017 16:42:06 GMT -5
Mannkind has hired nurse educators. I would think that part of what they would be doing is educating doctors and nurses at Endo and PCP offices so they can educate patients about using Afrezza. This lawsuit, based on my reading through only about 25% of the complaint, seems to be classifying education of a doctor about a drug as an illegal kickback. My impression is that the lawsuit asserts that calling them "nurse educators" when, in fact, they are being used to promote a specific product is fraudulent. They say it was illegal to pay the NEs to "induce PCPs to prescribe Novo's products." I suppose they're okay as as long as they don't get paid by a pharma. It would seem that educating docs about the benefits of Afrezza... rapid onset/offset, would inherently be "inducing" them to prescribe Afrezza since it is the sole product on the market with that characteristic. It seems this suit isn't alleging a kick back other than the act of education... i.e. no gifts, no money, etc... merely education.
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Post by ssiegel on Apr 29, 2017 17:07:58 GMT -5
My impression is that the lawsuit asserts that calling them "nurse educators" when, in fact, they are being used to promote a specific product is fraudulent. They say it was illegal to pay the NEs to "induce PCPs to prescribe Novo's products." I suppose they're okay as as long as they don't get paid by a pharma. It would seem that educating docs about the benefits of Afrezza... rapid onset/offset, would inherently be "inducing" them to prescribe Afrezza since it is the sole product on the market with that characteristic. It seems this suit isn't alleging a kick back other than the act of education... i.e. no gifts, no money, etc... merely education. The thing is that the definition of a "kickback" is broad: whistleblower-quitam-attorney.net/false-claims-act/healthcare-fraud/kickbacks/Even giving more free samples to a higher prescribing doc could qualify as a "kickback." In Novo's particular case: "The Novo-funded training sessions with doctors and patients, along with giveaways such as blood-testing log books, amounted to illegal kickbacks to physicians in exchange for prescribing the drug, according to the suit. The diabetes educators’ performance review and compensation were tied to the amount of sales their efforts produced, the whistle-blowers said."
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Post by agedhippie on Apr 29, 2017 22:27:29 GMT -5
It would seem that educating docs about the benefits of Afrezza... rapid onset/offset, would inherently be "inducing" them to prescribe Afrezza since it is the sole product on the market with that characteristic. It seems this suit isn't alleging a kick back other than the act of education... i.e. no gifts, no money, etc... merely education. The thing is that the definition of a "kickback" is broad: whistleblower-quitam-attorney.net/false-claims-act/healthcare-fraud/kickbacks/Even giving more free samples to a higher prescribing doc could qualify as a "kickback." In Novo's particular case: "The Novo-funded training sessions with doctors and patients, along with giveaways such as blood-testing log books, amounted to illegal kickbacks to physicians in exchange for prescribing the drug, according to the suit. The diabetes educators’ performance review and compensation were tied to the amount of sales their efforts produced, the whistle-blowers said." Blood testing log books are an inducement! Not giving them is probably more of an inducement. Nobody I know uses them - the meter stores the values for you and the endo downloads from your meter. I expect any logbooks the doctors were given have either been thrown out or are at the back of cupboard somewhere.
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Post by lakers on Apr 30, 2017 4:24:28 GMT -5
At the expense of Sny.
Turning to Slide 12. Sales of our growing Diabetes franchise declined by 6% in the first quarter. This was primarily driven by a 15% decline in the U.S. business which more than offset double-digit growth in Emerging Markets.
We caution against extrapolating first quarter performance to the remaining quarters of 2017 as we expect the U.S. Diabetes sales decline to accelerate over the remainder of the year. Keep in mind that there will be an incremental effect from the CBS formulary exclusion in Q2 and the United Health formulary just went into effect on April 1. Consequently, it remains our expectation, as we said last quarter, that Diabetes performance in 2017 is highly likely to come in below our minus 4 to minus 8 midyear guidance range. Within the overall outlook for the franchise, we expect to make steady progress with the rollout of our basal insulin, GLP-1 combo product, Soliqua and you have secured efficient coverage in the U.S. in the first quarter.
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Post by slugworth008 on Apr 30, 2017 8:35:27 GMT -5
Funny,how people bash us longs for consistently saying the game is rigged by BP. I wonder how many longs have actually called their members of Congress about MNKD? I have.
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Post by agedhippie on Apr 30, 2017 8:49:59 GMT -5
At the expense of Sny. Turning to Slide 12. Sales of our growing Diabetes franchise declined by 6% in the first quarter. This was primarily driven by a 15% decline in the U.S. business which more than offset double-digit growth in Emerging Markets. We caution against extrapolating first quarter performance to the remaining quarters of 2017 as we expect the U.S. Diabetes sales decline to accelerate over the remainder of the year. Keep in mind that there will be an incremental effect from the CBS formulary exclusion in Q2 and the United Health formulary just went into effect on April 1. Consequently, it remains our expectation, as we said last quarter, that Diabetes performance in 2017 is highly likely to come in below our minus 4 to minus 8 midyear guidance range. Within the overall outlook for the franchise, we expect to make steady progress with the rollout of our basal insulin, GLP-1 combo product, Soliqua and you have secured efficient coverage in the U.S. in the first quarter. Soliqua (aka. Lixilan) is important because it is part of the drive to delay the switch to meal time insulin with Type 2 after basal only fails.
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