What were the nurse "ambassador" allegations?
AbbVie paid $24 million in 2020 to settle allegations that it deployed nurses to reinforce Humira prescriptions while also offering doctors cash, meals, trips and patient referrals — blurring the line between patient support and commercial promotion.
In 2018 California's insurance commissioner joined a whistleblower lawsuit alleging that AbbVie used illegal kickbacks to promote Humira. In August 2020 AbbVie agreed to pay $24 million to settle. The case alleged that AbbVie deployed nurses, sometimes by phone and sometimes in patients' homes, to help ensure prescriptions were refilled, blurring the line between caregiver and marketer, and that doctors were offered cash, meals, drinks, gifts, trips and patient referrals.
The commissioner said AbbVie's prior practices egregiously put profits ahead of transparency in patient care. The settlement included mandated marketing reforms. AbbVie did not admit wrongdoing. Nurse support programmes are common in the industry, and the case sharpened scrutiny of when patient support becomes promotion.