PARIS (Reuters) – The Paris Court of Appeal on Wednesday ordered Servier laboratories to reimburse 415.6 million euros to health insurance and mutual insurance companies in the so-called Mediator affair.

This sum, to which are added more than one million euros for disorganization damage and five million euros for lawyer’s fees, is due to the health insurance funds and mutual societies on the basis of fraud, an accusation for which Servier laboratories were acquitted at first instance.

The Servier group expressed in a press release its intention to file a cassation appeal, saying it considers this conviction “in part in contradiction with the judgment rendered by the judges of first instance”.

“Despite the severity of the sentence”, he said he was “able to face this decision which is disappointing in many respects”.

Marketed as an antidiabetic since 1976, Mediator (benfluorex) was indicated in the treatment of overweight diabetics but was widely prescribed as an appetite suppressant.

Doubts about its medical usefulness and suspicions about its harmfulness had been known since the late 1990s but it was only withdrawn from the market in 2009 in France.

“Due to these numerous concealments, those responsible for marketing Mediator obtained its registration as a metabolism drug and obtained, in fraud, reimbursement conditions specific to this category of drug and then effective reimbursements on this basis until 2009 , thus characterizing fraudulent maneuvers constituting a fraud committed to the detriment of social security organizations”, declared the court of appeal in its decision.

The Court of Appeal also sentenced the Servier laboratories to 8.75 million euros in fines for the offenses of aggravated deception and homicide and involuntary injuries, increasing the fine of 2.7 million euros imposed in first case.

(Written by Blandine Hénault, edited by Bertrand Boucey)

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