January 14, 2022
PharMerica Pays $4.9M to End False Claims Act Suit Alleging Kickbacks and Medicaid Fraud
HOUSTON, Jan. 13, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — PharMerica Corporation has agreed to pay $4.9 million to resolve a False Claims Act suit alleging that it took kickbacks from a drug maker to promote two antidepressants, according to Berg & Androphy.
The settlement resolves a lawsuit against the pharmacy operator filed in 2007 by two former employees of drug maker Organon USA Inc. on behalf of the federal government and various states.
The lawsuit claimed that from 1999 to 2005, PharMerica sought and received kickbacks from Organon in the form of discounts in exchange for promoting the antidepressants Remeron and Remeron SolTab. Another pharmacy provider, Omnicare, settled for $23 million in 2017, and drug maker Organon settled for $31 million in 2014. The settlement with PharMerica marks the end of roughly fourteen years of litigation.