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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Courts - "U.S., States Join Lawsuits On Wyeth Drug Sales"; Indiana has joined

Avery Johnson reports today in the Wall Street Journal:

The Justice Department and 16 states joined two whistleblower lawsuits alleging that Wyeth defrauded the government by offering discounts to hospitals on two of its drugs that it didn't offer to Medicaid.

The lawsuits, filed in federal District Court in Massachusetts, claim that Wyeth avoided paying hundreds of millions of dollars in rebates to state Medicaid programs for its Protonix Oral and Protonix IV acid-reflux drugs. Wyeth sold $394 million of the drugs in 2008, but they brought in close to $2 billion a year in revenue before generic competition threatened them. * * *

Wyeth's pricing of Protonix has been the subject of a grand-jury investigation by the U.S. Attorney's Office in Massachusetts. That office couldn't be reached for comment. The other states joining the suit include California, Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The allegations against Wyeth are similar to those lodged against another heartburn drug, Merck & Co.'s Pepcid. Last year, Merck agreed to pay $250 million to settle a similar suit.

See also this AP story today headed "US: Drugmaker Wyeth cheated Medicaid."

This follows on an ILB entry posted May 15th quoting from an AP story:

NEW ORLEANS - Attorneys general from more than a dozen states asked a federal appeals court in New Orleans this week to review a ruling that they warn could cripple their open meetings laws * * *

In a court filing Monday, attorneys general for Louisiana and more than a dozen other states [including Indiana] joined Abbott in asking for a rehearing by all of the 5th Circuit's judges..

The ILB is looking into whether the Attorney General's office will make available a list of such lawsuits that Indiana's AG has joined.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on May 19, 2009 09:43 AM
Posted to Courts in general