Vinson Woodlee, a pharmacy marketer who allegedly collected more than $60 million in illegal kickbacks, has been charged with violating the federal Anti-Kickback Statute. According to the indictment, Mr. Woodlee, 68, served as a marketer for NextHealth, a pharmacy and laboratory services company controlled by Andrew Hillman and Semyon Narosov. NextHealth allegedly identified the industry’s most profitable prescriptions – including compound pain cream, scar cream, pain patches, and wellness supplements – then illegally paid physicians to prescribe those medications through NextHealth pharmacies, funneling some of the kickbacks through marketers like Mr. Woodlee. In exchange for enlisting physicians to participate in the scheme, Mr. Woodlee allegedly demanded roughly 50% of the profits from each prescription and refill written by the doctors he recruited. He then funneled a portion of the money on to prescribing physicians and sub-marketers, keeping the rest for himself.
