A Florida whistle-blower stands to collect a substantial chunk of a $421 million settlement that federal authorities made with pharmaceutical companies over fraud allegations.
Ven-A-Care of the Florida Keys, a home infusion company, and its principals brought the charges under the False Claims Act, and the U.S. Department of Justice joined them in seeking damages.
Abbott Laboratories, B. Braun Medical and Roxane Laboratories agreed to settle charges that they overbilled Medicare and Medicaid for their drugs.
Ven-A-Care will get $88.4 million of the $421 million settlement.
This is not the first reward the company has reaped. In other whistle-blower cases, it obtained $10.8 million in an October 2009 federal settlement with four drug companies, and it earned $1.4 million in December 2009 in a federal settlement with Roxane.
In July, Teva Pharmaceuticals and its corporate affiliates agreed to pay $27 million to resolve claims of Medicaid fraud which were brought to light in a whistle-blower complaint filed by Ven-A-Care.
In the 1990s, it received a $40 million award after a successful whistleblower complaint against National Medical Care.
The principals of Ven-A-Care are Mark T. Jones, Luis Cobo and Dr. John M. Lockwood.
The claims were originally filed in U.S. district court in Miami and later moved to federal court in Massachusetts. The government said the drug companies artificially inflated the prices of their drugs to boost their profits.
The largest settlement, , for $280 million, was against Roxane. The company was accused of setting inflated prices for azathioprine, diclofenac sodium, furosemide, hydromorphone, ipratropium bromide, Oramorph SR, Roxanol, Roxicodone and sodium polystyrene sulfonate.
Abbot was accused of inflating the prices of dextrose solutions, sodium chloride solutions, sterile water, vancomycin and erythromycin. It agreed to pay $126.5 million.
The government said B. Braun Medical, a subsidiary of German drug company B. Braun Melsungen, overbilled for 49 products, including the water-based solutions used in intravenous infusion and other intravenously administered drugs. It will pay $14.7 million.
“This practice came to light thanks to an alert South Florida whistle-blower,” said Wifredo Ferrer, U.S. attorney for the Southern District of Florida, in a press release. “As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars that were being siphoned off have now been recovered and will be used to provide services as intended – to the sick and elderly who need them. We encourage other whistle-blowers who have information about potential wrongdoing to come forward and help us stop fraud and abuse in our health care industries.”
Tuesday, December 07, 2010
Florida whistle-blower aids in $421M drug fraud settlement | South Florida Business Journal
via bizjournals.com
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