I-Team In-Depth
Insys Sales Manager Charged In Kickback Scheme
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Fifteen months after a Derby nurse admitted taking drug-company kickbacks in exchange for prescribing a powerful opioid painkiller, a former district sales manager for the company was arrested Thursday on federal charges that he helped to orchestrate the kickback scheme. Jeffrey Pearlman, of Edgewood, NJ, who was district sales manager for the New York region for Insys Therapeutics through 2015, and the sales representatives he managed “induced certain physicians, advanced practice registered nurses (APRNs) and physician assistants to prescribe the pharmaceutical company’s fentanyl spray by paying them to participate in hundreds of sham ‘Speaker Programs,’” according to a release from the U.S Attorney’s Office for Connecticut. The scheme “defrauded federal healthcare programs” of millions of dollars that was paid out improperly for the drug, Subsys, which is approved for use only in cancer patients with breakthrough pain. Federal prosecutors allege that Pearlman “personally profited” from the scheme through inflated quarterly bonuses he received that were based, in large part, on the sales results of the employees he managed. Pearlman, who is no longer employed by Insys, could not be reached for comment Thursday.