For companies trying to read the enforcement ‘tea leaves’ of the OIG, recent settlements and corporate integrity agreements often provide insight. In their article Compliance, Commercial Risk, and Pfizer: Lessons Learned, published April 20, 2010 by Corporate Compliance Insights, authors Stephen Rothenberg, Business Analyst, and Michael Abrams, Managing Partner, review the lessons to be drawn by compliance groups from Pfizer’s and other recent high-profile settlements

Commercial groups face some of the greatest challenges in dealing with today’s compliance environment and enforcement trends. Every aspect of industry relationships with physicians is under scrutiny, if not under investigation. Off-label marketing and industry financial relationships with physicians will continue to be the focus of many investigations. These trends indicate that the risk for companies will likely increase. Both the OIG and DOJ have indicated their intention to redouble their efforts by prosecuting individual employees and physicians to build cases against companies.

With the stakes growing ever higher, those responsible for compliance need to use every bit of intelligence they can to understand how to mitigate risk. Based on Pfizer’s and other recent settlement, the authors discuss the five key lessons to be drawn, and the steps companies must take to ensure success in an increasingly challenging regulatory environment.