Thursday, December 01, 2005

Margaritagate contd - Now Boehringer Ingelheim fess up and pay up

This amazing story has continued to a successful conclusion.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott has won a futher victory in an ongoing Medicaid fraud case against Big Pharma companies. This is the last in a series of lawsuits against several drug companies, resulting in almost $56 million in recoveries for the state.

In this settlement, Boehringer Ingelheim Corp. of Connecticut and its subsidiaries agreed to pay the state $10 million in damages to dismiss a lawsuit originally filed in September 2000 after whistleblower Ven-a-Care of Key West revealed the fraud to the state.

The Attorney General’s suit claimed the companies falsified the wholesale prices of several dozen prescription drugs, particularly inhalants, causing the Texas Medicaid program to overpay the companies for these drugs. “We will not tolerate big pharmaceutical companies that ignore the laws of Texas and bilk Texas taxpayers in the race for profits,” said Attorney General Abbott. “We will make sure these companies pay for their wrongdoing and give back money that rightfully belongs to Texas.”

The settlement with Boehringer and its subsidiaries – Roxane Laboratories Inc., Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc. and Ben Venue Laboratories Inc. – returns money to the state that the companies pocketed over time as they falsely reported their wholesale drug prices to the Medicaid program. The close relationship enjoyed by all of these companies with the parent company made possible the climate of wrongdoing in which the companies marked up prices by as much as 500 percent to wholesalers, distributors, pharmacies, group purchasing organizations, home health care providers and others delivering prescriptions to Medicaid patients.

Attorney General Abbott successfully concluded other lawsuits through settlements over the past two years that grew out of the original Ven-a-Care lawsuit. Dey Inc. settled for $18.5 million in 2003, and Schering-Plough Inc. and its subsidiaries settled last year for $27 million.

Attorney General Abbott’s Civil Medicaid Fraud team continues to investigate other Big Pharmas for similar offences.

Insider says: Margaritas all round! The toast is "Ven-a-Care". The owners of this little business (which was started to bring home care to AIDS patients), 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. Cheers everyone!!

http://www2.kauz.com/kauznews/fullnews.php?id=1863

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