Iowa AG suing 78 pharmaceutical companies
Pharma Compliance Alert, October 17, 2007
Iowa Attorney General Tom Miller is suing 78 pharmaceutical companies for allegedly inflating drug prices paid by Iowans through Medicaid.
The suit claims the companies falsely reported the average wholesale price (AWP) of drugs in order to receive a higher reimbursement from Medicaid.
According to the suit, the Iowa Medicaid Program spent $1.6 billion between 1992 and 2005 on drugs manufactured by the defendants. The lawsuit alleges the price for a drug paid by the state, based on a fraudulently-reported AWP and other price indicators, is very different from the true price and can exceed the true cost by 100% or even more.
The press release cites two examples of the alleged pricing fraud. In one example, GlaxoSmithKline reported an AWP for Zantac of $39.90, but sold the same drug to retail pharmacists for $9.80. In another example, Pfizer allegedly reported an AWP for Alprazolam of $169.36, yet sold the same drug to retail pharmacists for $10.10.
Click here to read the press release.
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