AmerisourceBergen Hit With Federal Lawsuit Over Opioid Crisis
WASHINGTON—The Justice Department has sued
AmerisourceBergen Corp.
ABC -0.48%
, alleging the large drug distributor contributed to the prescription opioid epidemic by failing to report suspicious orders to law enforcement.
Associate Attorney General
Vanita Gupta
said during a news conference Thursday that AmerisourceBergen could face billions of dollars in civil penalties if found liable in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia.
“The government’s complaint alleges that for years, AmerisourceBergen prioritized profits over its legal obligations and over Americans’ well-being,” Ms. Gupta said.
According to the complaint, AmerisourceBergen “knew that opioids they distributed were likely being sold in pharmacies’ parking lots for cash but they continued to supply those pharmacies with huge amounts of opioids anyway.”
A spokesman for AmerisourceBergen, based in Conshohocken, Pa., said in a statement that the Justice Department’s complaint focuses on five pharmacies “cherry picked” out of the tens of thousands it supplies.
In its statement, the company also placed blame on the Drug Enforcement Administration, saying even though AmerisourceBergen had shared a “vast quantity of information” with the agency, “the DEA still did not feel the need to take swift action itself.”
The Justice Department alleges that AmerisourceBergen began in 2010 to try to increase its sales to independent pharmacies, which were often more profitable and lacked controls to prevent the diversion of controlled substances into illegal channels.
AmerisourceBergen, for example, earned high gross profit margins on controlled substances to independent pharmacies in Gainesville, Fla., and Lakewood, Colo., while losing money on sales of noncontrolled substances to the same pharmacies, the complaint alleges.
The distributor sold large quantities of controlled substances to an independent pharmacy in Beckley, W.Va., even after one of its auditors learned of drug deals in the pharmacy’s parking lot.
AmerisourceBergen and three other companies—
Johnson & Johnson
and the drug distributors
McKesson
and
Cardinal Health
—in February finalized a $26 billion settlement to resolve opioid-related claims from state and local governments. AmerisourceBergen agreed to pay $6.1 billion as part of that deal.
A federal judge ruled in July after a bench trial that AmerisourceBergen, McKesson and Cardinal Health couldn’t be held liable for the opioid crisis in a West Virginia city and county. The West Virginia communities that brought that case had opted out of the $26 billion settlement.
The judge in the West Virginia case said overprescribing by doctors, dispensing of excessive prescriptions by pharmacists and diversion of the drugs to illegal usage were all “intervening causes beyond the control of defendants.”
AmerisourceBergen said in its statement that the July ruling “addressed many of the same accusations that are made in this DOJ complaint while acknowledging the role of the DEA in controlled substance distribution with tools like manufacturing quotas—ultimately concluding that AmerisourceBergen had complied with the law.”
McKesson agreed in a 2017 settlement with the Justice Department to pay $150 million over allegations that it failed to properly oversee shipments of drugs, including opioid painkillers, between 2008 and 2013. A year earlier Cardinal Health agreed to pay the government $44 million to settle similar alleged violations.
Opioid abuse has claimed more than half a million lives and triggered more than 3,000 lawsuits by governments, hospitals and others against players in the pharmaceutical industry, including manufacturers, distributors and drugstores.
Write to Jan Wolfe at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
WASHINGTON—The Justice Department has sued
AmerisourceBergen Corp.
ABC -0.48%
, alleging the large drug distributor contributed to the prescription opioid epidemic by failing to report suspicious orders to law enforcement.
Associate Attorney General
Vanita Gupta
said during a news conference Thursday that AmerisourceBergen could face billions of dollars in civil penalties if found liable in the lawsuit, filed in federal court in Philadelphia.
“The government’s complaint alleges that for years, AmerisourceBergen prioritized profits over its legal obligations and over Americans’ well-being,” Ms. Gupta said.
According to the complaint, AmerisourceBergen “knew that opioids they distributed were likely being sold in pharmacies’ parking lots for cash but they continued to supply those pharmacies with huge amounts of opioids anyway.”
A spokesman for AmerisourceBergen, based in Conshohocken, Pa., said in a statement that the Justice Department’s complaint focuses on five pharmacies “cherry picked” out of the tens of thousands it supplies.
In its statement, the company also placed blame on the Drug Enforcement Administration, saying even though AmerisourceBergen had shared a “vast quantity of information” with the agency, “the DEA still did not feel the need to take swift action itself.”
The Justice Department alleges that AmerisourceBergen began in 2010 to try to increase its sales to independent pharmacies, which were often more profitable and lacked controls to prevent the diversion of controlled substances into illegal channels.
AmerisourceBergen, for example, earned high gross profit margins on controlled substances to independent pharmacies in Gainesville, Fla., and Lakewood, Colo., while losing money on sales of noncontrolled substances to the same pharmacies, the complaint alleges.
The distributor sold large quantities of controlled substances to an independent pharmacy in Beckley, W.Va., even after one of its auditors learned of drug deals in the pharmacy’s parking lot.
AmerisourceBergen and three other companies—
Johnson & Johnson
and the drug distributors
McKesson
and
Cardinal Health
—in February finalized a $26 billion settlement to resolve opioid-related claims from state and local governments. AmerisourceBergen agreed to pay $6.1 billion as part of that deal.
A federal judge ruled in July after a bench trial that AmerisourceBergen, McKesson and Cardinal Health couldn’t be held liable for the opioid crisis in a West Virginia city and county. The West Virginia communities that brought that case had opted out of the $26 billion settlement.
The judge in the West Virginia case said overprescribing by doctors, dispensing of excessive prescriptions by pharmacists and diversion of the drugs to illegal usage were all “intervening causes beyond the control of defendants.”
AmerisourceBergen said in its statement that the July ruling “addressed many of the same accusations that are made in this DOJ complaint while acknowledging the role of the DEA in controlled substance distribution with tools like manufacturing quotas—ultimately concluding that AmerisourceBergen had complied with the law.”
McKesson agreed in a 2017 settlement with the Justice Department to pay $150 million over allegations that it failed to properly oversee shipments of drugs, including opioid painkillers, between 2008 and 2013. A year earlier Cardinal Health agreed to pay the government $44 million to settle similar alleged violations.
Opioid abuse has claimed more than half a million lives and triggered more than 3,000 lawsuits by governments, hospitals and others against players in the pharmaceutical industry, including manufacturers, distributors and drugstores.
Write to Jan Wolfe at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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