Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office Reaches $1.8 Million Settlement with Drug Manufacturer

BOSTON – Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office has reached a settlement with Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane, Inc. (Roxane), a Columbus, OH based drug manufacturer. Roxane has agreed to pay the state’s Medicaid program, MassHealth, $1.8 million to resolve a False Claims Act case pending in U. S. District Court in Boston. Roxane is a wholly owned subsidiary of Ridgefield, CT based Boehringer Ingelheim Corporation.

“Drug company price reporting is a national and industry-wide problem that the Commonwealth, as well as other states and the federal government, continues to address,” Attorney General Martha Coakley said. “Our office will continue to work with the state’s Medicaid program, other law enforcement agencies and the federal government to ensure that Medicaid payments are based upon accurate information.”

Roxane is one of 13 generic drug manufacturers the Commonwealth sued for allegedlyfalsely inflating the prices it reported to national pharmaceutical price reporting services. The Commonwealth’s Medicaid program, MassHealth, like all other state Medicaid programs and many private medical plans, uses prices reported by national price reporting services to determine the amounts it will pay for drugs dispensed by pharmacies to Medicaid recipients. The Commonwealth alleged that by reporting the inflated prices, the pharmaceutical companies caused the Massachusetts Medicaid program to pay inflated amounts for prescriptions for Medicaid recipients. Medicaid is a joint federal and state program which provides healthcare services, including prescription drugs, to low income and disabled persons.

The settlement resolves the Commonwealth’s claims related to the drugs that Roxane manufactured,including lithium carbonate, azathioprine, Roxicet, Roxicodone and ipratropium bromide. In agreeing to the settlement, Roxane denied any wrongdoing and asserted that its price reporting was consistent with all legal standards.

The Commonwealth has previously settled with four other defendants: Dey Pharmaceuticals, Barr Laboratories, Duramed Pharmaceuticals and Ethex- recovering a total of $5.675 million from those companies. The case against the remaining eight defendants is ongoing.

This matter was handled by Assistant Attorneys General Peter A. Mullin, Richard C. Heidlage, Robert P. Patten, Colleen A. McCarthy, Jay Pina and John Curseaden, and was investigated by Investigators Anthony Megathlin, John Walsh and Steve Devlin, all of Attorney General Coakley’s Medicaid Fraud Division.

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Attorney General Martha Coakley’s Office Reaches $1.8 Million Settlement with Drug Manufacturer