Founded in 1987, Ven-A-Care was a small pharmacy in Key West, Florida that sold drugs for AIDS patients. In 1991, Ven-A-Care was approached by a much larger company, National Medical Care (NMC), which offered a partnership. NMC said that it could bill the government for far more than the actual cost of the drugs. When Ven-A-Care declined the invitation, NMC began competing with them and a short time later, drove them out of business.
But Ven-A-Care decided to check up on NMC’s business. Ven-A-Care’s lawyers discovered that NMC was prescribing drugs that weren’t needed, paying kickbacks to doctors, and billing Medicare and Medicaid far more than the actual cost of the products they delivered to patients. In 2000, NMC and its parent company, Fresenius Medical Care, settled the case by paying some $385 million. Ven-A-Care’s share was $44.8 million. But Ven-A-Care and its legal team was just getting started.
Since taking on NMC, the four owners of Ven-A-Care, along with a fleet of lawyers, have become litigants in panoply of federal whistleblower lawsuits. The owners, who just a few years ago were forced out of the pharmacy business, have each earned millions of dollars—solely by applying the False Claims Act against the drug companies on behalf of the federal government.
Indeed, they have just been awarded another $26 million in the recent GSK anti-nauseant case settlement.
More big settlements are coming. The attorney general’s office, in conjunction with Ven-A-Care, has lawsuits pending against a host of other Big Pharma companies including Roxane Laboratories, Baxter Healthcare, B. Braun Medical Inc., Hospira, Inc., and Abbott Laboratories Inc.
Pass me another Margarita please; salt and on the rocks!
http://www.mollyivins.com/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1890
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