Pharmaceutical Giant Aventis Agrees to Big Payment for Fraud

On Monday, it was announced that Aventis Pharmaceuticals Inc. has agreed to settle False Claims Act allegations concerning its pricing and marketing of Anzemet, which is an antiemetic drug for preventing nausea and vomiting, according to the United States Justice Department. Anzement is used primarily in conjunction with oncology and radiation treatment.

Aventis, one of the biggest pharmaceutical corporations in the world and as such considered by industry critics to be part of "Big Pharma", has paid the United States and a number of states and the District of Columbia over $190 million to resolve allegations that the drug giant was responsible for false claims getting filed with Medicare and other federal health programs due to fraudulent drug pricing.

The suit was brought against Aventis on behalf of Ven-A-Care of the Florida Keys Inc., which is a home-infusion company. Ven-A-Care will receive approximately $32 million as their share of the settlement.

According to the Justice Department case, the pharmaceutical company engaged in a fraud to set and maintain inflated prices for Anzemet, in the full knowledge that federal health care programs established reimbursement rates based on those prices, in order to pocket more profits than it was fairly entitled to through an artificially high "spread", or difference between the reimbursement rate given by federal health care programs and the actual price paid by health care providers.

"Marketing drugs to doctors based on potential profits undermines confidence in the integrity of our health care system because it treats beneficiaries like commodities instead of patients. The Justice Department will continue to hold drug companies accountable for fraudulent pricing schemes designed to give windfalls to drug companies and doctors at the expense of federal health care programs for the poor and the elderly," said Assistant Attorney General Peter D. Keisler.