Corruption is Everywhere > Sarkozy Appeals Fraud Conviction; Big pharma Sanofi investigated for market manipulation

France's ex-president Sarkozy appeals 2012 campaign conviction

A Paris court on Wednesday began hearing former president Nicolas Sarkozy's appeal against his conviction for illegal campaign financing in a failed 2012 re-election bid.

By:NEWS WIRES

The 68-year-old former French head of state appeared relaxed as he appeared for the hearing in a grey suit, speaking with people in the public gallery before proceedings began.

Conservative Sarkozy has faced a litany of legal problems since his one term in office from 2007 until 2012, and has been charged separately with corruption, bribery, influence-peddling, and breaking campaign financing laws.

In the so-called "Bygmalion affair", the former head of state was sentenced to one year in prison in September 2021 on charges that his right-wing party, then known as the UMP, worked with a public relations firm to hide the true cost of his 2012 re-election bid.

France sets strict limits on campaign spending.

Prosecutors said that the firm, Bygmalion, invoiced the UMP rather than the campaign. They said Sarkozy spent nearly 43 million euros on his 2012 campaign, almost double the permitted amount of 22.5 million euros.

Thirteen other people -- including members of the UMP party, accountants and Bygmalion executives -- were found guilty of various charges, ranging from forgery and fraud to complicity in illegal campaign financing.

In the original trial, only four defendants, including the deputy head of the campaign, Jerome Lavrilleux, admitted any responsibility.

Sarkozy denied all wrongdoing, insisting that while there had indeed been "false invoices and fictitious agreements... the money had not gone into (his) campaign".

The appeal trial is scheduled to last nearly five weeks, with Sarkozy slated to testify on November 23.

Contacted by AFP, Sarkozy's lawyers declined to issue any statements prior to the hearing.

Sarkozy, who was criticised by the prosecution in the original trial for only turning up for the day of his actual hearing and deeming himself to be "above the fray", is expected to attend some of the most important sessions this time around.

He was charged last month in a separate witness tampering case relating to alleged Libyan financing of his 2007 presidential win.

Sarkozy also faces a separate probe into possible potential influence-peddling after he received a payment by Russian insurance firm Reso-Garantia of three million euros in 2019 while working as a consultant.

Despite his legal troubles, Sarkozy remains a hugely influential figure on the French right, courted by politicians and writing regular books that are major publishing events.

(AFP)

French financial authorities probe drug gaint

Sanofi over financial reporting irregularities

Nov. 7 (UPI) -- French drug giant Sanofi is under investigation by judicial authorities for allegedly putting out false financial reporting statements, possibly to manipulate the market.

Parquet National Financier prosecutors are eight months into a probe surrounding the dissemination of misleading information related to the drugmaker's financial communications, a judicial source told Bloomberg on Tuesday.

Sanofi insisted that as a listed company its financial information was "accurate, precise and sincere," fully audited by two auditing firms and denied knowledge of the investigation.

"Sanofi is not aware of any preliminary investigation on its 2017 accounts or other matter by the Parquet National Financier. We stand by the accuracy of our accounts," Sanofi said in a statement to CNBC.

French online news outlet La Lettre, which first reported the probe, said it was linked to the 2017 launch of Sanofi's blockbuster eczema jab, Dupixent.

The asthma and skin drug is the company's best-selling product with sales of Dupixent expected to top $10 billion in 2023. Sales could go much higher if trials to confirm its effectiveness in treating a chronic lung disorder are successful.

Sanofi's share price was down 0.5% at $90.20 a share in late afternoon trade on the Euronext exchange in Paris, after plunging as much as 2.5% earlier.

The stock had been trading at $107 or above for weeks prior to Sanofi issuing a shock 2024-2025 profits warning Oct. 27 and saying it was putting its consumer health business up for sale, sending the price spiraling down 20%.

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Drug Makers Sued over Insulin Price-Fixing

It is so clear now that pharmaceutical companies are mostly concerned about profits and have little concern whether their customers suffer, live or die. It is time to remove the company's right to fix their own prices. 

© Klaus Ohlenschläger

Eleven diabetes patients have filed a lawsuit in a federal court in Massachusetts accusing three big pharmaceutical companies of inflating the prices of lifesaving drugs by 150 percent and harming patients in the process.

Diabetes sufferers, who need daily doses of insulin to survive, watched as Sanofi, Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly jacked up the price of insulin from $25 per prescription to as much $300-400 over five years, according to the complaint filed Monday.

Drug manufacturers usually rationalize drug price increases by claiming the high costs of research and development. In this instance, the plaintiffs claim, manufacturers admitted their price hikes were neither related to such costs nor any jump in production expenses.

In other words, it is simple greed! What does this mean for 3rd world countries? Do they get insulin much cheaper, or do they go without, suffer and die?

The suit referred to a February 2016 op-ed written by an endocrinologist in the New York Times, which revealed the price hike had nothing to do with production costs.

The lawsuit cites examples of how the opaque drug-pricing system left many people unable to afford their insulin treatment, which can cost some patients up to $900 a month.

Patients have resorted to injecting themselves with expired insulin or starving themselves to control their blood sugar. In another instance, a patient intentionally slipped into diabetic ketoacidosis – one step short of a diabetic coma – in order to get insulin from hospital emergency rooms.

“People who have to pay out of pocket for insulin are paying enormous prices when they shouldn’t be,” said Steve Berman, a lawyer whose firm represents the patients and is seeking to have it certified as a class action suit, according to the New York Times.

The complaint said the price hikes were the result of “a scheme and enterprise among each Defendant and several bulk drug distributors.”

In the scheme, drug makers set two prices for insulin treatments: a public price and a distributor price. While the lawsuit accuses the benefit managers of being complicit, Berman said the lawsuit focused on the drug makers because “they are playing the game, and they are the ones who publish the list price.”

Plaintiffs contend that “business is booming” for bulk drug distributors, (PBMs), with the three biggest distributors – Express Scripts, CVS Health, and OptumRX – “bringing in more than $200 billion a year in revenue. They also control over 80% of the PBM market, covering 180 million insured people.”

The suit argues these drug distributors, acting as middlemen, negotiate medicine prices with drug manufacturers on behalf of insurers, setting up “tiered formularies for their clients” which insurers then use “to determine how much of their members’ drug costs they will cover.”

Under those tiered formularies, distributors can exclude a more expensive drug, removing it from a formulary presented to health insurers. In turn, the insurance companies refuse to cover the more expensive drug, “giving them (PBMs) enormous control over drug purchasing behavior.”

The suit alleges PBMs also pocket the difference between the benchmark price and the undisclosed real price they secure, which are “wildly inflated.”

Drug companies were quick to declare they were law-abiding and the allegations lacked merit.

“We strongly believe these allegations have no merit, and will defend against these claims,” Sanofi said in a statement.

Lilly said it had followed all laws, adding, “We adhere to the highest ethical standards.”

A spokesman for Novo Nordisk said the company disagreed with the allegations in the suit and would defend itself.

“At Novo Nordisk, we have a longstanding commitment to supporting patients’ access to our medicines,” the company said.

In December, attorneys general in 20 states accused several drugmakers, including Teva Phamaceuticals and Mylan, of price fixing.

Mylan was cited for hiking the prices of the Epipen, a life-saving tool for severe allergy sufferers.

Teva Pharmaceuticals agreed on Monday to a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act related settlement after the Justice Department accused the company of bribing officials in Russia, the Ukraine and Mexico to increase profits for the company’s generic pharmaceutical drug, according to Legal News Online. The company agreed to pay $519 million in penalties and follow a compliance program laid out by the DOJ.

President Donald Trump has pledged to address the matter and said the industry was “getting away with murder.”

“I'll oppose anything that makes it harder for smaller, younger companies to take the risk of bringing their product to a vibrantly competitive market,” Trump said in a meeting with pharmaceutical executives on Tuesday. “That includes price-fixing by the biggest dog in the market, Medicare, which is what's happening. But we can increase competition and bidding wars, big time.”

Trump also urged big pharmaceutical companies to move back to the US. 

“And I want you to manufacture in the United States. We're going to be lowering taxes, we're going to be getting rid of regulations that are unnecessary,” he said.

Sanders Calls for Investigations into Big Pharma Insulin-Price Collusion

    U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders © Mark Kauzlarich / Reuters

Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders has requested the US Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission open investigations into “potential coordination” by drug-makers Eli Lilly, Sanofi, and Novo Nordisk in raising insulin prices.

In a letter sent Thursday to US Attorney General Loretta Lynch and FTC chair Edith Ramirez, Sanders and Elijah Cummings — the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee — offered evidence that the three companies "who make different versions of insulin have continuously raised prices on this life-saving medication" even though the patent on insulin expired decades ago, and that "price increases have reportedly mirrored one another precisely."

Insulin is used to treat diabetes, a set of diseases that has quadrupled across the world in the last 35 years, according to the World Health Organization. Nearly 30 million Americans live with with diabetes, and many need insulin to survive. Diabetes costs in the US reached $322 billion in 2012, the letter claimed.

"We have also heard from our constituents that the life-saving insulin they need is increasingly unaffordable," Sanders and Cummings wrote. "About six million Americans use insulin, and for many patients, switching between insulin brands can be difficult because the medicines are not completely interchangeable."

Only three companies — Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi — make insulin worldwide and often insist they do not completely control costs. Yet analysts of the industry have said "evergreening" — or slight modifications to drugs that help maintain patients' business while keeping generic drugs at bay — and steep price hikes have occurred for decades.

"We strongly disagree with the accusations in the letter," said a spokesman for Eli Lilly, which sells Humalog and Humilin, according to PBS. "The insulin market in the US is highly competitive."

A Novo Nordisk spokesman told PBS "we set price for these life-saving medicines independently and then negotiate with payers and [pharmacy benefit managers] to ensure patients have access to them. We stand by our business practices."

A Sanofi spokeswoman said the company "sets the prices of our treatments independently."

In April, the Journal of the American Medical Association released a study that found that “the mean price of insulin increased from $4.34/mL in 2002 to $12.92/mL in 2013—a 200% increase."

Now, Liberals and liberal reporters may not be the most mathematically astute people in the world but the price increase listed above is obviously 300% not 200%.

The three companies have raised insulin prices steadily in recent years, according to Kasia Lipska, an endocrinologist at the Yale School of Medicine.

"From 2010 to 2015, the price of Lantus (made by Sanofi) went up by 168 percent; the price of Levemir (made by Novo Nordisk) rose by 169 percent; and the price of Humulin R U-500 (made by Eli Lilly) soared by 325 percent," Lipska wrote in February for the New York Times.

Cummings and Sanders — a former Democratic presidential candidate who challenged rival Hillary Clinton's relationship with pharmaceutical corporations during the primary campaign — alleged that not only have insulin prices skyrocketed, but that the few companies who effectively have the insulin market cornered have colluded in those price hikes. They cited research that found 13 instances since 2009 in which Lantus and Levemir increased within tandem within the US.

"From 2014 to 2015, the price of both Sanofi's Lantus and Nove Nordisk's Levemir reportedly went up by 29.9 percent, and each drug had a wholesale price of precisely $29.82 per milliliter," the letter says.

On Tuesday, after Sanders tweeted out criticism of insulin makers' price jumps, stock for Eli Lilly's Humalog hit a seven-month low.

The Justice Department is already investigating potential price collusion among dozens of generic drug companies, Bloomberg News reported Thursday. 

"We are concerned that the potential coordination by these drugmakers may not simply be a case of 'shadow pricing,' but may indicate possible collusion, and we believe this egregious behavior warrants a thorough investigation," the letter stated.