For more information about qui tam law and pharmaceutical fraud, contact Nolan and Auerbach, PA.

The suit alleges that Wyeth knowingly failed to give the government the same discounts it provided to private purchasers, as required by Medicaid law. According to the release, between 2000 and 2006, Wyeth offered steep discounts to thousands of hospitals nationwide for the drugs Protonix Oral and Protonix IV, two proton pump inhibitors used to suppress stomach acid. This pricing arrangement required that the hospitals purchase both drugs together, under a so-called “bundled” arrangement and it offered them a steep discount for doing so. Wyeth did this in part to gain access to the far more lucrative retail outpatient market, intending that patients who used the intravenous version of Protonix in the hospital would later purchase Protonix Oral once discharged. Under the bundled arrangement, hospitals that placed both products on their formularies and attained certain market share requirements were entitled to up to a 94% discount off the list price of Protonix Oral and up to 80% off the list price of Protonix IV. Although Wyeth was required under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program to determine the effective prices paid by hospitals under this arrangement and to pass along the benefit of the lowest prices to the state Medicaid programs, Wyeth allegedly failed to do so.

For more on this case, go to US DOJ website

For more information about Qui Tam law,  Medicare Fraud and Health Care Fraud , contact Nolan and Auerbach, PA.

Senators backing the bill say it would help to improve Health and Human Services’s (HHS’s) detection methods and place billing statements under increased scrutiny.

If it becomes law, HHS would identify the 50 counties most vulnerable to fraud and take a watch dog approach to carefully monitoring these designated “high-risk” fraud areas.

Among the many things it would do, the legislation would require that HHS establish a tracking system for certain durable medical equipment, and change the current system of using social security numbers as the Medicare Beneficiary Identifier used on Medicare cards.

To learn more about the bill, go to http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill=s110-3164&tab=summary or http://www.opencongress.org/bill/110-s3164/show.

For more information about qui tam law and health care fraud, contact Nolan and Auerbach, PA. .

The Department of Justice has filed a civil complaint against Forest Laboratories alleging that the pharmaceutical company intentionally concealed a clinical study containing negative results involving the drugs Celexa and Lexapro.  According to the complaint, several top executives at the company did not disclose the results of the study that showed that the drugs were not effective and could even pose risks to children.  In spite of this information, from 2001-2004 the company promoted clinical trials showing the effectiveness of the drugs while concealing the existence of the negative study to anyone including its own medical advisors or sales reps.  Further, the complaint alleges that Forest Laboratories paid pharmaceutical kickbacks including paying for vacations and other benefits to physicians to promote the drugs’ use by physicians.

Celexa and Lexapro are popular antidepressants approved by the FDA only for adults.  They are two versions of the same drug, Citalopram. Lexapro is Forest Labs’ blockbuster drug with sales of $2.8 billion in 2008.The company however actively improperly marketed these drugs for children even though in 2008 they sought approval from the FDA to use the drug to treat depression in adolescents.  While antidepressants approved for adults are used by physicians to treat children, Celexa and Lexapro now carry a prominent “black box” warning that these drugs could cause suicidal thinking or behavior in some children.

It appears that the Government has joined a whistleblower lawsuit filed by two former Forest Labs employees.  This follows what has clearly been a long-running federal investigation triggered by the filing of a qui tam lawsuit.

To read more click on http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/26/business/26drug.html?emc=eta1

or if you think that you have a Medicare Fraud case click on http://www.whistleblowerfirm.com/medicare-fraud/

One area of charges involves clinical trial fraud. According to the indictment, Palazzo, as a clinical investigator for SmithKline Beecham doing business as GlaxoSmithKline, fraudulently failed to maintain and prepare records required by the FDA for evaluation the drug’s safety and effectiveness in children and adolescents.

During approximately a five-year period, Palazzo also defrauded Medicare in connection with services she claimed to have rendered to patients in a Psychiatric Partial Hospitalization Program at Touro Infirmary , according to the indictment.

The indictment also charges that Palazzo defrauded Medicare by submitting fraudulent invoices to Touro for consulting and medical director services. The indictment says because of that Medicare paid Palazzo over $653,000 she was not entitled to receive. (Consulting and Medical director costs of hospitals are passed on to Medicare in part, under the cost report system).

See the full story here.

To see the full report, click here.

To read more about Pharmaceutical Fraud, click here.