Three drugmakers - Abbott, Roxane and Braun - to pay $421 million to settle false claims cases, says US Justice Dept

US health care major Abbott Laboratories (NYSE: ABT), B Braun Medical (a US subsidiary of Germany’s B Braun Melsungen AG) and Roxane Laboratories (the generics unit of independent German drugmaker Boehringer Ingelheim) and affiliated entities have agreed to pay $421 million to settle False Claims Act allegations, the US Department of Justice announced yesterday.

These settlements resolve claims by the USA that the defendants engaged in a scheme to report false and inflated prices for numerous pharmaceutical products knowing that federal health care programs relied on those reported prices to set payment rates, says the DoJ. The actual sales prices for the products were far less than what defendants reported. The settlement is part of long-running cases into health care fraud involving drugs reimbursed by Medicare and Medicaid.

Abbott unit also settles over Advicor and Niaspan kickbacks