Friday, December 18, 2009

Merck Will Pay $21.3 Million For Schering's Drug Pricing Misdeeds


Great story from Pharmalot -- do go read it all. Here is the settlement agreement, courtesy of Ed's server -- and here is a snippet [I covered the earlier similar Warrick state settlements here]:

. . . .The three lawsuits were originally filed by a whistleblower, Ven-A-Care of the Florida Keys on behalf of California, Florida and the federal government. Schering-Plough also settled Florida and cut a deal with the federal government that involved a $44.5 million payment.

The settlement resolves allegations that Warrick Pharmaceuticals, a subsidiary of Schering-Plough, deliberately inflated the Average Wholesale Prices (AWPs) it reported to California for Albuterol. Medi-Cal sets the reimbursement rates for pharmacies for many of the drugs dispensed to Medi-Cal patients based on the AWPs reported by drugmakers, the statement says.

California pharmacies dispensed Albuterol to patients and were then reimbursed by Medi-Cal. By reporting falsely inflated AWPs, some drugmakers caused Medi-Cal to overpay millions of dollars in pharmacy reimbursement. . . .

Atta' boy, Fred! You did a great job on this one!

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