OLATHE — A fifth lawsuit has been filed in Kansas against an opioid maker and a doctor accused in a prescription kickback scheme.
The Kansas City Star reports that Timothy Farquhar filed the lawsuit last week in Johnson County against his former doctor, Steven Simon, and Insys Therapeutics. He alleges that Simon prescribed him unnecessarily high doses of opioids, including the fentanyl spray Subsys, for pain related to a spinal injury and cyanide poisoning. Farquhar says he wasn’t informed of the risks of addiction and become dependent.
The federal government has alleged that Insys illegally used its physician speaker program to pay kickbacks, based on how much Subsys they prescribed. Simon was the top-paid Subsys speaker in Kansas.
Simon has said previously that the prescriptions were based solely on clinical judgment.
