Valeant's Favorite Pharmacy Made Life Easy for Doctors, at a Price

  • Valeant ally helped with paperwork that can eat up staff time
  • Philidor allegations give `medicine a black eye,' doctor says

Why Valeant Is an Unusual Pharmaceutical Ethics Case

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Bill Rietkerk, a New York dermatologist, thought it was a win-win situation.

Prescriptions he wrote were routinely filled by a pharmacy partner of drugmaker Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc. called Philidor Rx Services, which dispensed brand-name drugs he wanted his patients to get, even when they couldn’t win their insurers’ OK -- or if they didn’t even have insurance. And he said the relationship was great for his staff, because Philidor took over some of the paperwork that bogs down the day-to-day operations of many doctor’s offices.