Avanir Pharmaceuticals agreed to pay $116 million to settle civil and criminal charges of allegedly bribing doctors to prescribe Nuedexta, a drug for treating uncontrollable laughing and crying, and also misleading nursing homes into giving the medicine to patients with dementia even though it was not approved for that purpose.
At the same time, two Ohio doctors were indicted for allegedly accepting kickbacks that included money, meals, office equipment, travel expenses, and firearms training in exchange for writing Nuedexta prescriptions for people who did not need the medication. The condition Nuedexta is used to treat is called pseudobulbar affect. The U.S. Department of Justice also indicted two former Avanir sales reps for allegedly providing the kickbacks.
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