Fla. Lawsuit Alleges Mylan Inflated Prices: ; W.Va. Could Also Be Affected, Delegate Says
sfinn@wvgazette.com
Florida Attorney General Charlie Crist sued Morgantown-based Mylan Pharmaceuticals and two other companies last week for allegedly inflating the price of their prescription drugs.
“These companies ripped off Florida’s Medicaid program and cheated the public,” Crist said in a press release. “They profited by helping pharmacies line their pockets with Medicaid money that was supposed to help needy Floridians obtain medicine and health care.”
If the allegations in the Florida lawsuit are true, it is likely West Virginia’s Medicaid recipients were ripped off too, said Delegate Don Perdue, D-Wayne, a pharmacist.
“They’re not just going to do it in Florida,” Perdue said. “They set those prices nationwide, so if this is shown to have happened in Florida, it certainly has happened in West Virginia.”
Mylan officials did not immediately return a phone call seeking comment Monday. Mylan has approximately 1,500 employees in Morgantown.
The Florida attorney general’s action grew out of a whistleblower lawsuit by a small Key West pharmacy. It targets Mylan, Teva Pharmaceutical Industries of Israel, and Watson Pharmaceuticals of California.
According to the lawsuit, Mylan knowingly reported false prices to First DataBank, a company that keeps track of drug prices. States like Florida use the company to figure out what they will pay providers for prescription drugs.
Because Mylan gave inflated drug prices to First DataBank, Florida’s Medicaid program paid two to four times as much for certain drugs as retailers did, according to the lawsuit.
For example, one drug cost retailers $2.88, but the Florida Medicaid program paid $14.98 for it, the lawsuit alleges.
Those profits went to pharmacies, not the drug makers. But Mylan told pharmacies they could make more money from Medicaid reimbursements if they sold Mylan’s products, according to the lawsuit, increasing Mylan’s market share.
The alleged fraudulent practices began in 1994 and cost the Florida Medicaid program at least $25 million, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit seeks triple damages of $75 million.
Because other states rely on First DataBank’s information, it is likely that any pricing issues would affect them too, Perdue said. He called for investigations by the state’s Attorney General’s Office and Department of Health and Human Resources.
In 2001, Mylan’s parent company, Mylan Laboratories, settled a price-fixing lawsuit with West Virginia and 32 other states for $100 million.
Their lawsuit claimed that Mylan worked with other companies to cause the price of two generic drugs to skyrocket.
In January 1998, the price of clorazepate jumped from $11.36 to $377 for a 500-tablet supply, and in March 1998, Mylan raised the price of lorazepam from $7.30 to $192 per 500-tablet supply, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office.
On the Net:
www.myfloridalegal.com
www.mylanpharms.com
To contact staff writer Scott Finn, use e-mail or call 357-4323.