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McKesson to pay $151M to settle drug-pricing suit

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Twenty-nine states, including Indiana, have reached a $151 million settlement in a lawsuit alleging one of the country's largest drug wholesalers inflated prices for hundreds of prescription drugs, officials said Friday.

The agreement with San Francisco-based McKesson Corp. settles allegations that the company deliberately inflated drug prices by as much as 25 percent, causing the states' Medicaid programs to overpay millions of dollars in reimbursements.

Indiana will get more than $3.3 million in the settlement.

An investigation by state and federal agencies found that McKesson inflated the prices of more than 1,400 brand-name drugs, including these commonly prescribed medications such as Adderall, Allegra, Ambien, Celexa, Lipitor, Neurontin, Prevacid, Prozac and Ritalin, officials said.

California, where the alleged overpayments went on from August 2001 to December 2009, will receive about $24 million of the settlement, said state Attorney General Kamala Harris.

"In these difficult budget times, it is crucial that California's scarce public resources support the urgent needs of our state," Harris said in a statement. "We cannot allow dollars meant for patients to be diverted to inflate corporate profits."

McKesson representative Kris Fortner said the claims against the company are without merit, but "given the inherent uncertainty of litigation, we determined that this settlement was in the best interest of our employees, customers, suppliers and shareholders."

"We did not manipulate drug prices and did not violate any laws," Fortner said.

The settlement stems from a 2005 whistleblower lawsuit that was filed under federal and states' false claims statutes. It alleged that McKesson inflated average wholesale prices reported to First Data Bank, which many state Medicaid programs use to set payment rates for pharmaceutical reimbursement.

The federal government settled its portion of the lawsuit for more than $187 million in April.

New York will receive $64 million in restitution as part of the settlement announced Friday, said state Attorney General Eric Schneiderman.

"Pharmaceutical distribution companies are not above the law. This settlement holds McKesson accountable for attempting to make millions of dollars in illegal profits," Schneiderman said.

Besides Indiana, California and New York, states covered in the settlement include Arkansas, Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, North Dakota, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming. The District of Columbia also was covered.

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  1. As a St. Vincent employee of over 20 years, I am saddened and disheartened by this announcement. Unfortunately, as the healthcare "industry" continues on this political and corporate path, all that St. Vincent Hospital has stood for spiritually for its employees and this community is being sucked dry. I know it truly has no choice. It is not just Obamacare or just competition or just any single thing. This trend started long before I was even born when the government became involved in healthcare and it became an "industry." I grieve for those who will lose their jobs, one of whom may be me, but I also grieve for this hospital which I have served for over 20 years. May God give us and it the grace to withstand the future of healthcare.

  2. Why do people constantly harp on this issue and act ignorant about what a city population measures? A city's population is the city's population. There is no argument or debate about it. If you want to measure the density of a city--measure it. If you want to measure the size of a metropolitan area, then measure the metropolitan population. City boundaries cover different sized areas--and they always have (though the disparity has probably increased since about 1900 or so when more cities began annexing their surrounding communities). For example, San Francisco only covers 49 square miles while Houston cover nearly 600 square miles. No one argues about the population rankings of either city even though they clearly cover extremely different sized areas. Indianapolis is the 13 largest city by population in the U.S. That is a fact. While the population of a metropolitan area may give you a better sense of how large a community is, as noted, even metro areas can vary widely in the size of geographic area they cover--so that is not a perfect comparison either.

  3. If Whole Foods went in, I doubt the Nora one would stay open, and with all those customers coming to Broad Ripple traffic would be horrible, and forget about a run to the grocery on weekend nights. I think concern over the number of apartments is misplaced, but the 400 space parking garage has me concerned - someone needs to ask the developer just how much traffic they think this development is going to generate. I am not against more neighborhood residents, but heavy commercial traffic going in and out at that location sounds like a mess.

  4. I thought everyone was innocent until guilt was proven. Seems people have already convicted Reggie in the press. My nephew was a good kid and is a good man, more to this story im sure

  5. Going by the Marion County population only is of little use. 13th largest? No Way! To judge the real size of a metro area, the easy way is to look at the Arbitron rating list. Indianapolis hovers around 40th largest in the nation--sometimes more, sometimes less. Advertisers want to know exactly how large the population is before they buy radio advertising. Arbitron figured it out long ago. Indianapolis is estimated at 1,427,500. The real #13 is Seattle-Tacoma with a metro population of 3,470,400. So, the population of just Marion County is completely irrelevant to anything useful as far as metro area planning.

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