California sues Amgen for alleged kickbacks to boost anemia drug sales
California has joined New York and 13 other states in a federal lawsuit filed Friday against biotechnology giant Amgen. The suit alleges that the Thousand Oaks company gave kickbacks to health care providers to boost flagging sales of its anemia drug.
Amgen has sold $11 billion worth of its anemia drug Aranesp since 2001. But in the last couple of years the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has raised questions about the drug’s safety and sales have sagged.
CA/Local News
The multi-state lawsuit against Amgen alleges that the company paid kickbacks to medical providers to boost prescriptions of Aranesp. The suit also accuses Amgen of encouraging those providers to bill third parties, including Medicaid, when they give patients free samples of the drug.
The lawsuit alleges California and other states paid thousands of fraudulent claims and their Medicaid programs suffered millions of dollars in damages.
Amgen did not agree to a recorded interview, but issued a statement saying “The allegations are without merit.”
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Eric Johnson
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2 weeks, 6 days ago
A brief history of the world: from the beginning of time, the most powerful have preyed upon the meeker and less afluent. Throughout, various concerned individuals would illuminate this fact and provide solutions. Then the powerful would call them villans. In the 20th Century, the easiest way for the powerful to dis a do gooder was to call them a 'communist.' Now they have Limbaugh, O'Reiley and other blow hards dissing do gooders on tv and online. It works--because less educated folk have a hard time telling the difference between a loud passionate liar and a level headed honest do gooder. But it's not really that hard. Just listen to the strained tone of the blow hard. Compare this to the steady calm words of the do gooder. These 'girlie men' actually care about you and other people. Drug companies, credit card CEO's and many politicians don't care about you. They're preying on you. Don't cooperate. Don't fall in line. Push back. Be unruly. Don't behave as a polite 'consumer.' Be unmanageable. The less powerful have ALWAYS had to fight to not become victims of the powerful. It's a full time irksome job...but it's the only way to be somewhat free.