Pharmaceutical giant Aventis must pay more than 95 million dollars in an out-of-court settlement, after overcharging US and local health agencies for medications destined for indigent patients, federal prosecutors said Thursday. ‘We will continue to ensure that programs for the most vulnerable portions of our population do not pay any more for pharmaceutical products than they should under the law, Tony West, an assistant attorney general at the US Justice Department said in a statement announcing the settlement. Aventis Pharmaceutical Inc., a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sanofi-Aventis, acknowledged that it violated the False Claims Act by misreporting drug prices for patients in the Medicaid Drug Rebate program for poor patients. Under the program, Aventis was required to report to Medicaid the lowest price that it charged commercial customers, and pay quarterly rebates to the states for their Medicaid patients, based on those reported prices. But Aventis deliberately misquoted the prices, underpaying rebates to Medicaid and overcharging some public health agencies for the medications. The fraud occured between 1995 and 2000, and concerned the steroid-based anti-inflammatory nasal sprays Azmacort, Nasacort and Nasacort AQ. ‘We will continue to be vigilant in investigating and prosecuting those who scam […]
Friday, May 29th, 2009
Aventis to Pay $95 Million to Settle Fraud Charge
Author:
Source: The Raw Story
Publication Date: 28-May-09
Link: Aventis to Pay $95 Million to Settle Fraud Charge
Source: The Raw Story
Publication Date: 28-May-09
Link: Aventis to Pay $95 Million to Settle Fraud Charge
Stephan: Let me be as blunt as possible. If you have not taken the few minutes it requires to write your Senators and your representative, as well as the White House, demanding that we get a healthcare system in the U.S., to replace the illness profit industry we now labor under, you are part of the problem, whatever fine words you may say to your friends and family. Nothing is going to dismantle this monster but citizen insistence that it be done.
Thanks for Greg Dempsey.