Whistleblowing and Misconduct at Large Pharmaceutical Firms—Reply

In Reply Data indicate that whistleblower incentives are an important way to reduce the incidence of illegal activities by large pharmaceutical firms. Incentivized whistleblowing in the US includes the False Claims Act’s qui tam provision as well as a variety of other forms of whistleblowing. In response to our recent article, Dr Hashimoto and colleagues asked about the extent of whistleblowing activity in relation to financial penalties against large pharmaceutical firms in the US. We have now conducted dual-rater content analysis of all press releases for state and federal settlements between January 2003 and December 2016, obtained from the US Department of Justice, the US Securities and Exchange Commission, the US Environmental Protection Agency, and states’ attorneys general. To adjust for inflation, we applied the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ Gross Domestic Product Deflator to convert the payments to whistleblowers to 2016 dollars. We found that in our sample of 196 settlements, 56 (28.6%) of these were identified as being the result of whistleblower actions. Of the 56 whistleblower-related penalties, press releases documented payments to 39 whistleblowers, with the average payout of $36.9 million. Total payment to the 39 whistleblowers was $1.438 billion, with a minimum payment of $252 000 and a maximum payment of $116.7 million. Seventeen of the settlements identified as the result of whistleblowing activity did not reveal whistleblower payment amounts. Furthermore, it is likely that additional settlements resulting from whistleblowing activities were not reported in press releases. If so, whistleblower payments from 2003 to 2016 in the US would amount to greater than $1.438 billion.