Schizophrenia Daily News Blog

Bristol-Myers Settles in Pricing and Ethics Scandals

The Independent (London) reported this week that Bristol-Myers Squibb pays $499 Million fine to settle mis-selling charges. The UK Paper stated:

Bristol-Myers Squibb, the drug company which fired its chief executive in September after a string of ethics scandals, will pay a fine to avoid criminal charges that it overcharged the US government for medicines.

The company said yesterday that it had reached an agreement with the district attorney of Massachusetts "to settle several investigations involving the company's drug pricing, and sales and marketing activities". Federal authorities have spent several years examining a series of allegations against BMS's sales-force. This agreement also settles allegations that BMS encouraged doctors to prescribe medicines - including the schizophrenia medicine Abilify - to treat conditions for which they had not been licensed.

The bulk of the fine relates to overcharging of the US government's Medicare and Medicaid insurance schemes. These schemes reimburse patients for their medicines according to a formula based on the average wholesale price of the drugs. BMS was accused of keeping that price artificially high, while in fact supplying drugs at significant discounts. GlaxoSmithKline, the UK's biggest drug maker, paid $70m earlier this year to settle similar accusations.

Read the Full Story: Bristol-Myers Squibb pays $499m fine to settle mis-selling charges