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Office of the Attorney General
Attorney General Conway Announces Multi-Million Dollar Settlement With Pharmaceutical Company
Attorney General Jack Conway today announced a $2.4 million dollar settlement with Amgen, Inc., a California-based biotechnology and pharmaceutical company with a subsidiary in Louisville.
The lawsuit, filed by the Office of the Attorney General in Franklin Circuit Court, alleges that Amgen and 47 other pharmaceutical companies defrauded the Kentucky Medicaid Program and violated Kentucky consumer protection laws by publishing significantly inflated average wholesale prices (AWPs) for prescription drugs - knowing that the Kentucky Medicaid Program would rely on these inflated AWPs to calculate pharmacy reimbursement rates. These inflated AWPs bore no relationship to any prices that Amgen actually charged its customers. The lawsuit alleges that Amgen marketed the “spread” between the inflated AWPs and the real prices as a means of maximizing its own profits and those of pharmacists who were being reimbursed at the higher Medicaid rate.
“I am pleased that we were able to recover these funds for Kentucky taxpayers who are tired of some pharmaceutical companies that try to increase profits by gaming the system,” General Conway said. “I appreciate Amgen’s cooperation in this investigation.”
Amgen is a Fortune 500 company that manufactures Aranesp, Enbrel, EPOGEN, Kineret, Neulasta, NEUPOGEN and Sensipar..
A settlement is not an admission of liability in a civil case.
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