Florida doctor accepted $160K in bribes to prescribe unnecessary fentanyl, feds say

A Florida pain management doctor will pay $1.5 million to settle the U.S. government’s lawsuit filed against him — accusing him of accepting thousands of dollars to unnecessarily prescribe a fentanyl product to patients, federal prosecutors said.

In exchange for $159,580 in bribes, Dr. Edward Lubin prescribed a company’s fentanyl spray to dozens of people without valid medical reasons from 2014 to 2016, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida.

Insys Therapeutics, Inc. paid Lubin to issue prescriptions for Subsys, its product meant to “treat breakthrough cancer pain,” the attorney’s office said in September 2021, when the lawsuit was filed.

Of the 61 patients Lubin prescribed the fentanyl spray to, 52 didn’t have cancer, according to prosecutors.

Fentanyl, a synthetic prescription opioid used to treat severe pain, is estimated to be approximately 50 to 100 times more powerful than morphine.

At least 15 doctors, seven former Insys executives and seven former Insys sales representatives have been criminally convicted in connection with the company’s scheme to defraud patients and medical insurers such as Medicare, the attorney’s office said in an Oct. 27 news release.

Lubin agreed to the $1.5 million settlement to resolve the case and the government’s accusations that he violated the False Claims Act, the attorney’s office announced in the release. He’s accused of violating the law by causing more than 400 false claims for Subsys to be submitted to Medicare and TRICARE.

The Tampa-based doctor’s settlement agreement “is neither an admission of liability by (him) nor a concession by the United States that its claims are not well founded,” the court filing says.

McClatchy News contacted Lubin’s defense attorneys for comment on Oct. 30 and didn’t receive an immediate response.

“The United States will not be thwarted in its efforts to hold doctors like Dr. Lubin accountable for issuing medically unnecessary prescriptions tainted by kickbacks,” U.S. Attorney Roger B. Handberg said in a statement.

Lubin’s involvement in Insys’ ‘sham speaker program’

Lubin is accused of taking bribes from Insys while practicing at the Gessler Clinic Professional Association in Winter Haven, about 50 miles east of Tampa, according to the settlement agreement.

In 2019, the Insys company was prosecuted in Massachusetts federal court and pleaded guilty to five counts of mail fraud in connection with its “sham speaker program” Lubin took part in, prosecutors said.

Insys disguised the bribes it paid to Lubin and other doctors as compensation for “speaking at sham ‘events,’” according to prosecutors.

These events “lasted a few minutes, never occurred, or had repeat attendees despite the lack of any reason to present the same information multiple times to the same individuals,” prosecutors said.

When Lubin caused more than 400 false claims for Insys’ fentanyl spray to be submitted to Medicare and TRICARE, the companies paid more than $4 million for the fraudulent claims, according to prosecutors.

Insys’ scheme inspires a Netflix movie

In 2018, Evan Hughes, while writing for The New York Times Magazine, helped expose how Insys paid millions to doctors as part of its widespread sham speaker program in a piece titled “The Pain Hustlers.”

Hughes also wrote a book about the case: “The Pain Hustlers: Crime and Punishment at an Opioid Startup.”

His article inspired the new Netflix film “Pain Hustlers” starring Emily Blunt and Chris Evans, according to the Tampa Bay Times.

The film is directed by David Yates, Tudum by Netflix reports.

“I was intrigued by the pharma world, particularly the low-rent end of it, the workaday reps and sales teams striving to make a living in a hugely competitive business of dealing with people’s pain,” Yates told the outlet.

In regards to Lubin, on Oct. 27, his attorneys filed the lawsuit settlement agreement in bankruptcy court, which has the “final approval” over it, prosecutors said.

This story was originally published October 30, 2023 at 3:55 PM with the headline "Florida doctor accepted $160K in bribes to prescribe unnecessary fentanyl, feds say."

Julia Marnin

McClatchy DC

Julia Marnin covers courts for McClatchy News, writing about criminal and civil affairs, including cases involving policing, corrections, civil liberties, fraud, and abuses of power. As a reporter on McClatchy’s National Real-Time Team, she’s also covered the COVID-19 pandemic and a variety of other topics since joining in 2021, following a fellowship with Newsweek. Born in Biloxi, Mississippi, she was raised in South Jersey and is now based in New York State.