( January 2, 2025, 10:22 AM EST) -- NEW YORK — The Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals vacated and remanded in part a district court’s ruling dismissing a qui tam plaintiff’s complaint alleging that Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. violated the federal False Claims Act (FCA) by engaging in kickbacks in violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute (AKS) through offering “illicit renumeration” to physicians prescribing the multiple sclerosis drug Gilenya, finding “as a matter of first impression in this Circuit that a plaintiff states an AKS violation so long as she alleges with the requisite particularity that at least one purpose of the purported scheme was to induce fraudulent conduct.”...