Pharmaceutical fraud is an umbrella term applied to various types of fraud committed by pharmaceutical companies to increase use of their drugs, manufacture drugs that perform in the same ways as other companies’ drugs, and/or defraud governments by avoiding taxes or receiving artificially inflated reimbursements from state-run medical programs (such as, in the United States, Medicare and Medicaid).

[Page 1070]The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reported in 2006 that pharmaceutical fraud may cost United States’ taxpayers up to $60 billion a year. While this report facilitated better antifraud laws and enforcement of existing antifraud laws in this area, the numbers are still very high, and pharmaceutical fraud is a problem for both the pharmaceutical industry and for people the world over, who are negatively affected in ...