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 Prosecutors have asked a federal judge in Providence, Rhode Island,
to sentence Jerrold Rosenberg to 70 months in prison, saying he
allowed his medical judgment to be corrupted by $188,000 in
kickbacks paid by Insys disguised as speaker fees.
Prosecutors said patients with chronic pain placed their trust in
Rosenberg, only to be prescribed Insys' powerful opioid-based spray
Subsys, which was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration
for use by people with cancer.
Two patients nearly died from overdoses, prosecutors said. They said
Rosenberg continued treating patients with Subsys even when they
complained of side effects, telling one who is expected to testify
on Friday: "Stop crying, you're acting like a child."
He was indicted in February 2017 and pleaded guilty in October to
charges that he committed healthcare fraud and conspired to receive
kickbacks. He is scheduled to be sentenced by U.S. District Judge
John McConnell.
Rosenberg, 63, is one of several medical practitioners who along
with former executives and sales representatives employed by
Chandler, Arizona-based Insys have found themselves facing charges
amid investigations related to Subsys.
Federal prosecutors in Boston have accused seven former executives
and managers at Insys, including billionaire founder John Kapoor, of
participating in a scheme to bribe doctors to prescribe Subsys and
to defraud insurers into paying for it.
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Prosecutors said that beginning in 2012, Kapoor, ex-Insys Chief
Executive Michael Babich and others schemed to bribe medical
practitioners by paying them to participate in sham speaker
programs.
Those "programs" ostensibly were meant to educate healthcare
professionals about Subsys, yet they tended to be gatherings at
restaurants and included friends and co-workers who could not
prescribe the product, prosecutors have said.
Rosenberg was among the doctors who participated in the program from
2012 to 2015. He also fraudulently indicated that his patients
suffered from cancer when they did not in order to secure insurance
approvals for Subsys, prosecutors said.
Kapoor, Babich and their co-defendants have pleaded not guilty.
Insys has said it may need to pay at least $150 million to resolve
the U.S. Justice Department's probe.
(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by Dan Grebler)
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