state medicaid programs

Settlements and kickbacks and corporate integrity agreements, oh my (to the tune of "lions and tigers and bears, oh my")

To quote the BusinessWeek version of the story:

A $112 million settlement involving alleged drug kickbacks that the Justice Dept. announced with the nation's largest nursing home pharmacy and a generic drug manufacturer on Nov. 3 is part of a wide-ranging investigation of suspected Medicaid fraud by the pharmaceutical industry.

Here is another addition to the parade of multi-million dollar legal settlements by health care corporations.

As reported by the AP:

Drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis has agreed to pay nearly $100 million to settle allegations it cheated Medicaid on the cost of nasal sprays.

The latest big settlement, as reported by Bloomberg:

Quest Diagnostics Inc. the world’s largest provider of medical diagnostic tests, agreed to pay $302 million to resolve allegations that its Nichols Institute Diagnostics unit manufactured, marketed and sold misbranded diagnostic test kits, the U.S. government said.

In "Drug Maker Told Studies Would Aid It, Papers Say" (New York Times, Mar. 19, 2009), the Times discusses the case of psychiatrist Dr.

Joseph Biederman. Dr. Biederman outlined plans to test Johnson & Johnson’s drugs including risperidone/Risperidal in presentations to company executives and seemed to guarantee positive outcomes for his studies of the drug, raising questions about his research.

Here we go again. Multiple media sources reported on allegations that Pfizer Inc, the world's largest pharmaceutical company, attempted to manipulate and suppress clinical research results unfavorable to one of its products. Per the Wall Street Journal,

Another addition to the cavalcade of settlements, from the Virginian-Pilot,

Amerigroup Corp., which faced $334 million of damage awards and court-imposed penalties from a Medicaid fraud suit in Chicago, said Tuesday that it will pay the U.S. government and state of Illinois $225 million to settle the civil case.