Tap Pharmaceuticals pleaded guilty to criminal misconduct charges in a Boston federal court Oct. 16 in one of the biggest health care fraud cases in U.S. history.
Tap, a joint venture of Abbott Laboratories and Takeda Chemical Industries, will pay up to $875 million in criminal and civil damages for questionable sales and marketing practices involving Lupron (leuprolide acetate), a drug used to treat prostate cancer and other diseases. The U.S. District Attorney in Massachusetts, who prosecuted the case, charged Tap with providing "free samples" of Lupron to doctors and then helping them get Medicare and Medicaid to pay for them. They also were accused of inflating the average wholesale price of the drug and conducting a lucrative series of kick-backs with doctors who prescribed Lupron instead of its competitor, AstraZeneca's Zoladex (goserelin acetate implant). The investigation, according to published reports, began years prior when Tap sales representatives offered a Massachusetts urologist $65,000 to authorize the Lupron treatment for his HMO instead of Zoladex. The urologist, the HMO and a former vice president of sales for Tap now share a $95 million dollar whis tle-blower award as part of the settlement.
Bristol-Myers Squibb and Schering-Plough still are under investigation by the same Massachusetts authorities for similar sales and marketing allegations. In a prepared statement, Abbott noted that its reserves "are adequate to cover its half" of the settlement.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further reproduction or distribution is prohibited without permission.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group
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