Indivior crashes on indictment over opioid treatment marketing fraud

A US federal grand jury indicted Indivior (LSE: INDV) on Tuesday on charges the company orchestrated a “nationwide scheme,” with the news sending the shares plunging this morning.

The indictment alleges that Indivior “illegally obtained billions of dollars in revenue from Suboxone Film prescriptions by deceiving healthcare providers and health care benefit programs into believing that Suboxone [buprenorphine and naloxone] Film is safer and less susceptible to diversion and abuse than other, similar drugs.” Furthermore, the indictment also stipulates that Indivior discussed ways to delay Food and Drug Administration approval of generic versions of Suboxone tablet by discontinuing Suboxone Tablet under the pretext of a safety concern, thereby triggering FDA safety-related processes which could take as long as a year. The indictment also alleges that the price of the Suboxone Tablet was increased from 2010 to “support the scheme” and “cause patients to switch to Suboxone Film.”

Shares in the company, already hurt by expectations of a slump in Suboxone sales due to the arrival of generic competition this year, crashed 73.43% to an all time low of 28.15 pence this morning.