The State of Michigan is the latest entity to sue San Francisco-based prescription drug wholesaler McKesson Corp., for allegedly artificially inflating prices for certain brand name and generic drugs.
A press release from Michigan's attorney general's office about the lawsuit says McKesson, Hearst Corporation and its subsidiaries "conspired to inflate average wholesale prices for certain drugs by five percent, resulting in the Michigan Medicaid Program overpaying many millions for pharmacy claims from 2001 to 2009." The press release says the state paid almost $2 billion on the brand name drugs and about $80 million on the generic drugs in question.
McKesson has been sued by others in recent years for the same issue. Earlier this spring, Massachusetts certified a class action lawsuit against McKesson on behalf of cities, counties and other municipalities in the state. The suit claimed that due to inflated prices set by McKesson, these entities had overpaid for drugs. McKesson settled a different, but similar, suit in 2009.
[See also: McKesson faces class action lawsuit.]
Michigan's lawsuit, filed earlier this month, claims that McKesson and Hearst, a publisher of pharmaceutical pricing data, agreed secretly in 2001 to manipulate drug price data for the purpose of inflating the average wholesale price for certain drugs in order to receive higher reimbursements from Michigan and others.
Michigan seeks to recover the money lost through overpayment and for any civil penalties for the submission of false claims.
At the time of the release of the attorney general's statement about the lawsuit, a hearing had not yet been set.
A request for comment from McKesson had not been returned by press time.