Swiss pharmaceutical drug maker Novartis announced it has set aside $700 million for a potential settlement in a long-running lawsuit over allegations that the company paid hundreds of millions of dollars in kickbacks to doctors to induce them into prescribing drugs to patients to boost their sales.

Jaclyn Jaeger is a freelance contributor to Compliance Week after working for the company for 15 years. She writes on a wide variety of topics, including ethics and compliance, risk management, legal,...