DOJ: Pharmaceutical company paid Gerber

SANDUSKY — The pharmaceutical company who allegedly paid Dr. Greg Gerber $175,000 to prescribe a fentanyl medication faces a lawsuit in Maryland for the same drug.In a landmark legal action, a federal court placed a restraining order on Gerber's ability to prescribe controlled substances after he was accused of unlawful prescriptions by the Department of Justice.Gerber allegedly prescribed Subsys — an under-the-tongue fentanyl spray used to treat cancer patients with opioid tolerance — to patients who didn't have a medically accepted diagnosis for it.The complaint filed by the department in the court says Gerber received $175,000 from Subsys's manufacture, Insys Theraputics, Inc., in speaker fees from 2013 to 2016.The department says he was chosen because of his willingness to prescribe the drug and the money was a pretext to induce him to prescribing the drug.The increased prescriptions allegedly caused Medicare to pay more than $1.6 million to Insys while Gerber received kickbacks from the company."As a matter of policy, the company generally refrains from commenting on legal proceedings," Insys spokesman Joseph McGrath said.When President Donald Trump began the crackdown on overprescription of opioids, Insys and its founder John Kapoor were targeted by the Department of Justice.Kapoor pleaded not guilty to fraud and racketeering charges in a Massachusetts federal court last November related to alleged kickbacks paid to doctors, according to court documents.Last month, the Arizona-based pharmaceutical company reached a $150 million settlement with the Department of Justice to resolve a civil and criminal probe into its inappropriate sales. The money will be paid over five years."This is a very important step for our company to move forward and continue our transformative efforts to foster a compliant and ethical culture," Insys CEO Saeed Matohari said in a news release on the settlement.Since the allegations were first levied against Insys the company has made efforts to change, two-thirds of its board of directors and more than 40 percent of the employees are new to the company."Our company continues to put behind it the significant challenges caused by the inappropriate actions of certain former employees," the company said in a June news release. "It is our hope that our actions can help us continue regaining the trust of the health care community as we focus on the matters we can control."On Thursday, the Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh filed a consumer protection lawsuit for how Insys marketed Subsys in the state, the Baltimore Sun reported. Frosh isn't convinced the company has changed its ways and is seeking $20 million.Reach reporter Michael Harrington at michaelharrington@sanduskyregister.com, follow the Register at Facebook.com/SanduskyRegisterSubsys, a fentanyl spray, meant to treat the pain of cancer patients.