"GlaxoSmithKline to pay Mass. over $35m; Accord part of $3b US fraud settlement" by Robert Weisman | Globe Staff, July 02, 2012
The pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has agreed to pay more than $35 million to Massachusetts’ Medicaid program as part of a $3 billion settlement with federal and state authorities, the largest health care fraud payment in US history.
Related: Milking Medicaid in Massachusetts
The massive settlement, disclosed Monday by the Department of Justice, includes a guilty plea to three criminal charges by London-based GlaxoSmithKline, which has its US headquarters in Philadelphia.
The company, which bought the Cambridge biotechnology company Sirtris Pharmaceuticals Inc. in 2008, runs a molecular discovery research lab in Waltham.
GlaxoSmithKline has admitted to illegally promoting its antidepressant drugs Paxil and Wellbutrin between 1998 and 2003 for uses not approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Although doctors may prescribe drugs for off-label treatments, drug makers are required to confine their marketing to approved uses. The British company also acknowledged that it failed to report safety data from its Avandia diabetes drug to the FDA.
“These were drugs that are very well known,” said the attorney general of Massachusetts, Martha Coakley, whose office led a five-state delegation that teamed up with Justice Department prosecutors in the settlement negotiations with GlaxoSmithKline. “Widespread marketing, with misrepresentations about the safety and efficacy of these drugs, can give doctors a false sense of security. And this ultimately has an impact on consumer safety.”
Money from the settlements will reimburse Massachusetts and most other states for Medicaid payments made to GlaxoSmithKline, allowing the states to reduce their new outlays for Medicaid, the federally subsidized state health insurance program for low-income residents.
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Also see: GlaxoSmithKline pleads guilty to health fraud
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