A raid ordered by prosecutors at Novartis’ Athens offices produced a list of 300 doctors who allegedly took bribes of between 1,000-5,000 euros between January of 2016, and January, 2017.
That means that the investigation has been extended beyond the initial timeframe, which ended in 2015.
The 300 new cases are above and beyond the more than 4,000 doctors who allegedly received “gifts” from Novartis over the last years.
Evidence collected to date in the prosecutors’ probe of non-political divs suggests that public sector losses from the overpricing of hospital pharmaceuticals are many times more than the initial estimates of three billion euros.
If that evidence can stand in a court of law, the damages that the Greek state can claim from Novartis may be astronomical.
Meanwhile, the Corruption Prosecutor’s Office has begun taking a fresh series of depositions from the three protected witnesses in the Novartis investigation, but it is unclear in the testimony involves politicians or doctors, state functionaries and others involved in the overpricing and over-prescribing scandal.
