Pfizer/Wyeth Settlement Finalized and Signed: States Net Millions

The Department of Justice ("DOJ") recently entered into a settlement of a quit tam lawsuit against Pfizer, Inc. and Wyeth, LLC. We previously wrote about this settlement back in February, when an "agreement in principle" was reached between Pfizer and the United States government. As a refresher, allegations were made by Lauren Kieff, a former hospital sales representative for AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, LP, and William St. John LaCorte, a physician, that Wyeth engaged in healthcare fraud from 2001 to 2006. These allegations covered two medications, both commonly used to treat acid reflux disease, Protonix Oral and Protonix I.V. Shortly after bringing Protonix I.V. to market, Wyeth found that it was not selling well and began to offer bundle sales on both of their PPI drugs if they were purchased together. Allegedly, Wyeth thought that if patients were discharged from the hospital on Protonix Oral, they were likely to stay on the drug for long periods of time, rather than switch to competing Proton Pump Inhibitors (PPIs) of which there are many. While the patients remained on the drug after discharge, they, including Medicaid, would pay nearly full price for the drug. The actions taken by Wyeth, prior to the Pfizer merger, allegedly included failing to inform Medicaid about the discounts that it was offering to its private purchasers, such as hospitals. Wyeth's failure to inform Medicaid about the bundled discounts it was offering and providing to its hospital customer...
Source: Policy and Medicine - Category: American Health Authors: Source Type: blogs