On May 7, 2012, the Justice Department announced that Abbott Laboratories, Inc. has pled guilty to allegations arising out of its promotion of the prescription drug, Depakote.
Abbott Labs was charged with promoting the drug for uses which had not been approved as safe and effective by the Food and Drug Administration.
On Thursday, April 26, 2012, Stuart F. Delery, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Justice Department’s Civil Division; New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman; and Daniel R. Levinson, Inspector General of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced that the McKesson Corporation has agreed to pay the United States a $190 million settlement to resolve allegations that the company violated the False Claims Act.
A spokesperson of Merck Sharp & Dohme announced that the company agreed to plead guilty to one count of misbranding Vioxx. The unit of Merck & Co., the second-largest U.S. drug maker, plead guilty to a criminal misdemeanor charge as part of a $950 million settlement of a U.S. government probe of its illegal marketing of the painkiller Vioxx.
After an Arkansas jury found that Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) company officials misled doctors and patients about the risks of one of their drugs, a judge ruled that JNJ must pay more than $1.1 billion in fines. The drug was an antipsychotic medication called Risperdal. The jury had concluded that J&J’s marketing of this particular drug violated both Medicare fraud laws and Arkansas’s deceptive trade practices statutes.
The Justice Department announced today that Janzen, Johnston & Rockwell Emergency Medicine Management Services Inc. (JJ&R), who handles billing services for physicians, hospitals and other health care providers, was accused of submitting false claims to Medicare and Louisiana’s Medicaid program and has agreed to settle and pay the United States $4.6 million.
On Thursday, the United States Supreme Court struck down a Vermont law that blocked drug manufacturers’ use of prescription drug information in marketing campaigns designed to sell new drugs to physicians. Although the law was designed to hold down health care costs and shield physicians from harassing marketing campaigns by preventing manufacturers from using prescription drug information to craft marketing campaigns,
Drug lobbyists, PhRMA and BIO have been trying to sell the public on claims that kickbacks involved in the Omnicare Whistleblower Litigation, in which Omnicare, a prominent pharmacy benefit manager, allegedly accepted bribes from most top drug companies in return for pushing expensive medicines over cheaper alternatives, offered rebates to Omnicare,
Teva Pharmaceuticals, the Israeli generic pharmaceutical manufacturer, has settled, for $169 million, claims pending against it in Texas, California and Florida related to overpricing of its pharmaceutical products. Under the scheme, Teva had provided the drugs at issue to private pharmacies including Walgreens and Wal-Mart at steeply discounted rates, but reported higher prices to the states’
Elan Corporation, plc, of Dublin, Ireland has agreed to settle claims related to the marketing of Zonegran, an anti-epileptic drug for which it sold the rights to a Japanese company in 2004. In January of 2006, Elan admitted that the the DOJ and the Department of Health and Human Services were looking into its marketing practices,
The United States Attorney’s Office for the District of Massachusetts announced the settlement of multiple false claims act cases against Omnicare, Inc. of Covington, Kentucky, for $98 million for soliciting and receiving multiple kickbacks. The first scheme involved Johnson and Johnson and kickbacks for recommending that physicians prescribe Risperdal, a J&J antipsychotic drug,
If you are aware of any person, corporation or entity that you think may be violating the Federal False Claims Act or a State False Claims Act, contact us today.