Double whammy for Johnson & Johnson, as DoJ sues on alleged 'kickbacks,' and Tylenol contamination discovered

The US Department of Justice has filed a civil False Claims Act complaint against drug major Johnson & Johnson and two of its subsidiaries, Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals and Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems.

The complaint, which stems from whistleblowers' accusations, alleges that these companies paid millions of dollars in kickbacks to Omnicare, the nation's largest pharmacy that specializes in dispensing drugs to nursing home patients. Bernard Lisitza, one of the whistleblowers in the claims against J&J, is a former pharmacist for Omnicare who said he was fired after complaining about his employer's switching patients' prescriptions to J&J drugs.

In its complaint against J&J, the United States alleges that the company paid kickbacks to Omnicare to induce the nursing home pharmacy operator to purchase and recommend J&J drugs, including the anti-psychotic Risperdal (risperidone), for use in nursing homes. According to the complaint, J&J understood that Omnicare's pharmacists reviewed nursing home patients' charts at least monthly and made recommendations to physicians on what drugs should be prescribed for those patients. The government further alleges that J&J knew that physicians accepted the Omnicare pharmacists' recommendations more than 80% of the time, and that J&J viewed such pharmacists as an "extension of [J&J's] sales force."