Healthcare Revisited –Legal Factors in Healthcare Costs (con’t)
The following is a list of some of the largest settlements reached between the United States Department of Justice and pharmaceutical companies from 1991 to 2012, ordered by the size of the total settlement.”
| Year | Company | Settlement | Violation(s) | Product(s) | Laws allegedly violated |
| (if applicable) | |||||
| 2012 | GlaxoSmithKline[1][6] | $3 billion ($1B criminal, $2B civil) | Criminal: Off-label promotion, failure to disclose safety data. | Avandia (not providing safety data), Wellbutrin, | False Claims Act/FDCA |
| Civil: paying kickbacks to physicians, making false and misleading | Paxil (promotion of paediatric use), Advair, | ||||
| statements concerning the safety of Avandia, reporting false best | Lamictal, Zofran, | ||||
| prices and underpaying rebates owed under the Medicaid Drug Rebate Program | Imitrex, Lotronex, | ||||
| Flovent, Valtrex; | |||||
| 2009 | Pfizer[2] | $2.3 billion | Off-label promotion/kickbacks | Bextra/Geodon/ | False Claims Act/FDCA |
| Zyvox/Lyrica | |||||
| 2013 | Johnson & Johnson[7] | $2.2 billion | Off-label promotion/kickbacks | Risperdal/Invega/ | False Claims Act/FDCA |
| Nesiritide | |||||
| 2012 | Abbott Laboratories[8] | $1.5 billion | Off-label promotion | Depakote | False Claims Act/FDCA |
| 2009 | Eli Lilly[9] | $1.4 billion | Off-label promotion | Zyprexa | False Claims Act/FDCA |
| 2001 | TAP Pharmaceutical Products[10] | $875 million | Medicare fraud/kickbacks | Lupron | False Claims Act/ |
| Prescription Drug Marketing Act | |||||
| 2012 | Amgen[11] | $762 million | Off-label promotion/kickbacks | Aranesp | False Claims Act/FDCA |
| 2010 | GlaxoSmithKline[12] | $750 million | Poor manufacturing practices | Kytril/Bactroban/ | False Claims Act/FDCA |
| Paxil CR/Avandamet | |||||
| 2005 | Serono[13] | $704 million | Off-label promotion/ | Serostim | False Claims Act |
| kickbacks/monopoly practices |
The Largest drug-related class action settlement was in 2000
“Fen-Phen diet drugs $3.8 billion
In 2000, a federal judge in Philadelphia approved a $3.75 billion settlement over a diet drug known as fen-phen that had been associated with potentially fatal heart valve damage. Six million people reportedly used fen-phen, sold by American Home Products, before it was pulled from the market in 1997. The settlement provides up to $1.5 million to users, depending on their injuries and how long they used the drug.”
“News flash, just announced by far the largest settlement offer to date and this is for only one drug and one company involved in the Opioid Crisis: The maker of OxyContin, Purdue Pharma, and its owners, the Sackler family, are offering to settle more than 2,000 lawsuits against the company for $10 billion to $12 billion. The potential deal was part of confidential conversations and discussed by Purdue’s lawyers at a meeting in Cleveland last Tuesday, Aug. 20, (2019), according to two people familiar with the mediation.
Brought by states, cities, and counties, the lawsuits — some of which have been combined into one m massive case — allege the company and the Sackler family are responsible for starting and sustaining the opioid crisis. “
Additional Update: In November 2019 it was announced that the current offer to settle the Opioid Class action was now at $50 Billion for the two largest manufacturers of the product!
The point is that in the long run all of these costs end up being passed along to the consumer in the form of higher prices (you might say an added tax).