Drugmakers Charged With Defrauding Medicaid
posted Wed, 5 Oct 2011October 5, 2011
Pharmalot
By Ed Silverman
More than a dozen drugmakers have been named in a whistleblower lawsuit that charges they concocted various schemes to underpay rebates to numerous state Medicaid programs over the past seven years. And the complaint was filed by the former head of a major trade group that represents healthcare products distributors.
The lawsuit was originally filed three years ago, but was recently unsealed after the feds declined to intervene. Nonetheless, Ronald Streck, a lawyer and pharmacist who spent more than a decade as executive director of the Healthcare Distribution Management Association, is pressing the case in federal court in Philadelphia. Two dozen states and the District of Columbia have joined the case as plaintiffs. Read more