False claims One insider's impossible battle against big pharma corruption

In this passionate debut, former pharmaceutical sales rep Pratta recounts her efforts to bring one of her employers to justice. After surviving an abusive childhood in New Jersey, Pratta began a career in drug sales in the 1980s. During her first several years in the field, she set annual sales records despite encountering rampant sexism. Her commitment to the industry eroded, however, after she started working for pharmaceutical company Questcor. Shortly after she started the job, Pratta learned Questor was encouraging its salespeople to promote off-label use of multiple sclerosis drug Acthar at excessively high doses in order to juice profits. Pratta's friend and colleague, Pete Keller, told her that he was going to report Questor's falsehoods to the feds and convinced Pratta to join him. In the end, Questor's parent company, Mallinckrodt, agreed to settle with the federal government, though Pratta acknowledges that what disturbed her--"the kickbacks, the bribes, the off-label prescription use"--continues at other companies. Still, her pride in becoming "a person who had the ability to stand up for others" resonates. This is both an illuminating up-close look at how corruption works and a moving account of one person discovering her strength. Agent: Adam Chromy, Movable Type. (June)

A whistleblower takes on fraud and corruption in U.S. health care. American life is increasingly defined by pivotal moments. When does one stand up to corruption that harms the vulnerable? For former Big Pharma insider Pratta, that moment came when she saw the sales practices around a breakthrough drug. Her book offers the captivating account of one woman's turn from high-flying pharmaceutical sales rep to corporate whistleblower. The author guides readers through her decades of working as a top-level sales representative in pharmaceuticals and biotech. As she rises in the industry, mounting red flags within her company prompt her to collaborate with the U.S. Justice Department on a fraud and corruption case against her employer. The story centers on practices in one company as it ramps up a campaign to sell a novel drug to treat multiple sclerosis, but it notes how attendant kickbacks and dishonesty in drug pricing and sales practices are rampant across the industry. Few are spared in this account, and Pratta brings carefully detailed receipts gathered in the decade she spent helping build a federal case against her employer. The whistleblower's story and internal conflict are laid out in full, from her idealism about health care at the beginning of her career through her disillusionment and fight to reveal the dangerous, money-driven rot in the system. It's a tale of Pratta's comingled survival of and dependency on Big Pharma, navigating a male-dominated industry rife with misogyny and sexual harassment while relying on the income her work provides to support her family as a single mother. The professional and the personal are interlaced clearly and with purpose. The realities of America's profit-driven health care system laid bare by an insider. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.