Salix Pharmaceuticals is an American pharmaceutical company based in Bridgewater, New Jersey and owned by Bausch Health Companies. Revenue for 2025 was over $2.5 billion with profits over $1.9 billion.
According to a press release dated June 9, 2016: “Manhattan U.S. Attorney Announces $54 Million Settlement Against Salix Pharmaceuticals For Using “Speaker Programs” As Mechanism To Pay Illegal Kickbacks To Doctors To Induce Them To Prescribe Salix Products”.
“Salix Admits to Paying Doctors to Serve as “Speakers” at Programs that Were Primarily Social in Nature and Where the “Speakers” Spent Little or No Time Discussing the Relevant Salix Product”
“In connection with the filing of the lawsuit and settlement, the Government joined two private whistleblower lawsuits that had previously been filed under seal pursuant to the False Claims Act.”
“SALIX paid over 500 physicians honoraria for serving as speakers on the Covered Products, with dozens of physicians earning more than $50,000, and several earning more than $100,000.”
“Throughout the Covered Period, numerous SALIX employees held speaker programs for the Covered Products that were primarily social in nature and/or otherwise did not comply with the company’s internal policies. For example, there were programs where:
- the designated speaker spent little or no time discussing the Covered Product;
- the required slide presentation was not shown in its entirety or not at all;
- doctors attended multiple programs on the same topic (at which the same slide presentation was supposed to have been shown) within a short period of time;
- the programs were held in the main dining rooms of restaurants or other locations that were not conducive to an educational program;
- the programs were held at high-end restaurants (such as Nobu and Le Bernardin in New York City), with per-person costs exceeding $200 and even $300;
- the SALIX sales representative responsible for a program reported that certain physicians had attended the event even though they had not, in order to make the per-person cost of the event appear lower than it actually was;
- attendees included individuals other than healthcare professionals with a legitimate interest in the scheduled topic, such as a physician’s spouse; and/or
- the programs were used as an opportunity to provide a physician’s practice (in some cases including administrative staff) with a meal or a happy hour.”
See the full press release below.