WASHINGTON -- Swiss drug-making giant Novartis paid doctors kickbacks to boost the sales of three of its products by holding "educational events" on fishing trips and at Hooters restaurants that were little more than parties, the federal government has alleged.

The Justice Department filed a lawsuit in federal court against the U.S. division of Novartis, saying the drug company violated the federal Anti-Kickback Statute from January 2001 to at least November 2011.

Specifically, the East Hanover, N.J., company paid physicians to speak about three Novartis drugs -- hypertension drugs amlodipine/benazepril (Lotrel) and aliskiren/valsartan (Valturna) and diabetes drug nateglinide (Starlix) -- "at events that were often little or nothing more than social occasions for the doctors," the Justice Department said in a news release Friday.

Such programs should have an educational purpose and include a slide presentation about the company's drugs. But the events were nothing more than lavish dinners or trips -- such as fishing trips off the Florida coast -- with little record of product education ever occurring, the whistle-blower-initiated lawsuit stated. Some events were held at Hooters restaurants.

"In many instances Novartis made payments to doctors for purported speaker programs that either did not occur at all or that had few or no attendees, and thousands of programs were held all over the country at which few or no slides were shown and the doctors who participated spent little or no time discussing the drug at issue," the release went on to say.

For example, dinner for three at a high-end Washington restaurant last summer totaled $2,016, or $672 per person, and included a $1,000 honorarium to the speaker. One of the two attendees attended the same program a short time earlier, the Justice Department said. A 2006 dinner for two at a West Des Moines, Iowa, restaurant topped $3,000.

The Justice Department cited an internal analysis of Novartis' saying the programs resulted in additional prescriptions written from doctors who participated in the program, causing an increase in spending from government programs Medicare, Medicaid, and others.

"In short, doctors increased the number of prescriptions they wrote when they were being paid by Novartis to speak about a drug," the government stated. "As a result, Novartis spent millions on speaker programs yearly."

Novartis spent nearly $65 million on more than 38,000 speaker programs in a nearly 10-year period, the government said.

The lawsuit, United States v. Novartis Pharmaceuticals, was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York.

"Kickback schemes like those alleged in this case not only call into question the integrity of individual medical decisions, but they also raise the cost of healthcare for all of us," Stuart Delery, acting assistant attorney general for the Civil Division, said in a statement. "Patients deserve care based on a doctor's sound medical judgment, not the doctor's personal financial interest."

Earlier in the week, the Justice Department filed a separate complaint in the same court alleging that Novartis gave at least 20 pharmacies kickbacks for agreeing to switch transplant patients from competitors to its immunosuppressant drug mycophenolic acid (Myfortic).

"We disagree with the way the government is characterizing our conduct in both of these matters and we stand behind our Compliance program," Andre Wyss, president of Novartis Pharmaceuticals, said in a statement. "[Novartis] invests significant time and resources to help ensure we conduct our business in an ethical and responsible manner. We are committed to doing it right."

Novartis is already operating under a corporate integrity agreement stemming from criminal allegations that it illegally promoted the epilepsy drug oxcarbazepine (Trileptal) for off-label use.

That agreement, which started in September 2010, runs 5 years, and in it Novartis agreed not to engage in the types of marketing practices that the Justice Department is accusing the company of in this most recent complaint. If the company is found guilty this time, the federal government could bar Novartis from participating in federal healthcare programs.

"No individual at the company was tasked with examining its speaker program data to determine whether the programs were used for an illegitimate purpose," the Justice Department said. "Even after September 2010, Novartis continued to conduct bogus speaker programs that were simply vehicles for paying kickbacks to doctors in the form of honoraria and expensive meals."