February 8, 2008
Merck to pay Maine $2.2M
Maine will receive more than $2 million from Merck & Co. as part of a $671 million settlement the pharmaceutical company is paying to 49 states and the District of Columbia to resolve claims that it overcharged government health programs and gifted doctors to persuade them to prescribe its drugs, according to the Associated Press.
Prosecutors claim that since the mid-1990s Merck had failed to report the lowest price of its medicines, like Vioxx and Zocor, to ensure that Medicaid programs benefitted from drug discounts or rebates. Prosecutors claim Merck was hiding the steep discounts it gave to hospitals and reporting higher prices to the government.
Merck did not claim any wrongdoing; rather, it said it wanted to resolve the disputes. Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe, however, wrote in a statement that, "This is another example of a large pharmaceutical company trying to 'game the system' to line its corporate pockets at the expense of health care consumers."
Prosecutors claim that since the mid-1990s Merck had failed to report the lowest price of its medicines, like Vioxx and Zocor, to ensure that Medicaid programs benefitted from drug discounts or rebates. Prosecutors claim Merck was hiding the steep discounts it gave to hospitals and reporting higher prices to the government.
Merck did not claim any wrongdoing; rather, it said it wanted to resolve the disputes. Maine Attorney General Steven Rowe, however, wrote in a statement that, "This is another example of a large pharmaceutical company trying to 'game the system' to line its corporate pockets at the expense of health care consumers."
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