On April 29, 2025, the U.S. Department of Justice (United States Attorney’s Office, Southern District of New York) announced that pharmaceutical giant Gilead Sciences agreed to pay a whopping $202 Million to resolve a False Claims Act investigation. At issue was Gilead’s HIV speaker program, where Gilead would invite healthcare providers who were involved in the treatment of HIV to “present a slide deck (prepared by Gilead) and facilitate discussion about one of the drugs or a topic concerning HIV to other healthcare providers.” According to the DOJ’s press release, Gilead’s speaker program events “were often held in the evening at restaurants.”
The DOJ contends that the true purpose of Gilead’s HIV speaker program was to “promote and increase the sales of” Gilead’s HIV drugs. The DOJ claims that that speaker program provided kickbacks to healthcare providers by:
[H]olding HIV Dinner Programs at high-end restaurants that were wholly inappropriate for educational events; allowing Attendees to attend HIV Dinner Programs on the exact same topic again and again and, thereby, obtain free lavish meals for events that held minimal educational value for them; and paying for HIV Speakers to travel to speak at desirable destinations—at times at the HIV Speaker’s request.
The DOJ also claims that Gilead’s compliance program “failed to prevent these improper practices, even though Gilead knew that it had to comply with the AKS and the company’s own data should have put Gilead on notice of many of these abuses.”
The government’s press release gives an example of one HIV speaker who apparently received over $300,000 in total honorarium payments while, at the same time, writing prescriptions for Gilead’s HIV drugs that resulted in over $6 million in federal healthcare program payments. The government also notes that Gilead’s programs were often held at “desirable travel destinations” such as Hawaii, Miami, and New Orleans, and that sometimes a destination was chosen specifically at the request of one of the speaker/prescribers.
Many of Gilead’s events were held at “high-end restaurants” including the James Beard House which, according to the government’s press release, “typically included approximately six courses with alcoholic beverage pairings.”
The case resolved a whistleblower lawsuit brought under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act. The whistleblower — Dr. Paul Bellman — will be entitled to an award of between 15 and 25% of the government’s total recovery, equaling between $30.3 million to $50.5 million.
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The attorneys at Chilivis Grubman represent individuals and companies of all types and sizes in connection with False Claims Act investigations and litigation. If you need assistance with such a matter please contact us.