Roche Dismisses J & amp;B from Supplier Lawsuit

Roche Diagnostics and Roche Diabetes Care have dismissed J&B Medical Supply from a lawsuit filed earlier this year over the retail pricing of diabetes test strips. The complaint accuses several pharmacies and medical supply companies of exploiting price differences of the strips sold to people covered by durable medical equipment (DME) plans and those covered by pharmacy benefits plans. Roche also dismissed J&B's co-founders, Fawzi B. Shaya and Mary E. Shaya, from the case. No other defendants have been dismissed from the ongoing litigation. Test strips paid for by pharmacy plans have a much higher list price and a higher insurance reimbursement rate than those paid for by DME plans, but pharmacy plans get significant rebates from Roche that DME plans do not receive. The complaint accuses the defendants of buying Roche test strips at the lower DME list price and diverting them to sale in channels where they would be reimbursed at the much higher pharmacy plan rate. In doing so, Roche claims the defendants and their "co-conspirators" made millions of dollars in illicit profits, costing Roche as much as $89 million in wrongful rebates and legitimate sales. According to the lawsuit, some of the defendants, including Centerline, MI-based Binson's Hospital Supplies, and initially Wixom, MI-based J&B Medical Supply, had promised to sell the DME test strips only through DME channels but broke that promise. John Truscott, a spokesman for J&B Medical Supply, told MD+...
Source: MDDI - Category: Medical Devices Authors: Tags: Medical Device Business Source Type: news