US States Join Medicaid’s Lawsuits Against Wyeth

Published: 18-May-2009

The US Justice Department has joined forces with 16 states in a legal fight against Wyeth, alleging that the drug maker has failed to reimburse hundreds of millions of dollars to Medicaid – a joint federal-state healthcare program for the poor.

The states which are up against Wyeth are California, Delaware, the District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, Nevada, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and Wisconsin, according to forbes.com.

The lawsuits were originally filed in Massachusetts alleging that Wyeth had not given the same discounts to Medicaid program that it gave to private hospitals.

The lawsuits accuse Wyeth of giving steep discounts to private hospitals on drugs such as Protonix Oral and Protonix IV that reduce stomach acid, with a motive of winning the retail business of the same patients once they were discharged from the hospital.

Michael Loucks, US Attorney for the District of Massachusetts, said: “The best price reporting requirement is designed to assure that the nation's healthcare programs for the poor - the Medicaid programs - are treated equally with drug companies' best commercial customers.”

Meanwhile, Wyeth’s spokesman Douglas Petkus said that Wyeth would fight the charges in court. The company believes that its pricing calculations were correct and intends to defend itself vigorously in these actions, he said.

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