Settlement Reached With Pharmaceutical Company

The Kentucky attorney general’s office has recovered another $7 million on behalf of the Kentucky Medicaid program following a settlement with the Johnson & Johnson family of companies.

This is the latest in a number of settlements in so-called Average Wholesale Price (AWP) lawsuits filed against 47 of the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies.

 The lawsuits filed by the Attorney General allege that Johnson & Johnson, which encompasses Janssen Pharmaceutical Products, LP, Centocor, Inc., McNeil Pharmaceutical, Inc., Ortho Biotech Products, LP and Ortho-McNeil Pharmaceutical, Inc., published false, inflated and deceptive AWPs for their drugs, which did not bear any relationship to the real prices that they actually charged their customers.  The Kentucky Medicaid program relied on these published AWPs to calculate Medicaid drug reimbursement rates. 

Johnson & Johnson brand drugs implicated in the lawsuits included the popular brand drugs Risperdal (schizophrenia), Propulsid (heartburn), Flexeril (muscle strain), Procrit (anemia), Ditropan (overactive bladder), Haldol (psychotic disorders), and Topamax (epilepsy), as well as numerous other drug products.