Novartis to Pay $678 Million to Settle Doctor-Bribe Claims (3)

Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. agreed to pay $678 million to resolve a whistle-blower case accusing the drugmaker of paying kickbacks to thousands of doctors who prescribed its medicines and wooing them with lavish dinners and trips to Hooters, ending almost a decade of litigation.

The U.S. sued the Swiss drugmaker in 2013, joining in a case filed two years earlier by a former sales representative who accused the company of using its speakers’ programs to bribe doctors to write prescriptions for its products.

Novartis paid “exorbitant speaker fees to doctors who gave no meaningful presentations, and provided expensive meals and alcohol ...