Identity theft + pharma greed = jail

We see plenty of fraud in medicine; it’s not uncommon for biopharma or hospital employees to try to pull a fast one over health insurers. What we don’t see so much: identity theft. 

Mark Moffett, a sales rep for Aegerion Pharmaceuticals, was convicted Friday by a federal jury in Boston for both defrauding insurers and using the identities of physicians to commit that fraud. 

Moffett was pushing the drug Juxtapid, which costs more than $300,000 and carries a black box warning. It’s been approved only to treat homozygous familial hypercholesterolemia, but Moffett convinced doctors to prescribe the drugs for patients without that indication.

He managed to build out fake clinical histories for fake patients, who were given fake prescriptions by real cardiologists whose identities Moffett stole. He made $11,000 in bonus bucks for each Juxtapid prescription he ushered into being — but now faces up to two decades in prison.