AmerisourceBergen to pay $885 million in DoJ settlement

AmerisourceBergen Corp(NYSE: ABC) and two of  its subsidiaries have agreed to pay $625 million to resolve allegations arising from its operation of a facility that improperly repackaged oncology-supportive injectable drugs into pre-filled syringes and improperly distributed those syringes to physicians treating vulnerable cancer patients, the US Department of Justice announced on Monday.

ABC is one of the nation’s largest wholesale drug companies and ranked number 11 on the Fortune 500 list. The drugs involved in ABC’s scheme were Procrit (epoetin alfa), Aloxi (palonosetron), Kytril and its generic form granisetron, Anzemet (dolasetron mesylate) and Neupogen (filgrastim).

Last year, AmerisourceBergen Specialty Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary, pled guilty to illegally distributing misbranded drugs and agreed to pay $260 million to resolve criminal liability for its distribution of these drugs from a facility that was not registered with the Food and Drug Administration. The settlement resolves ABC’s civil liability to the United States under the False Claims Act for causing false claims for the drugs it repackaged to be submitted to federal health care programs.