From another list. Sorry about the formatting.
Cheers, Ken Hanly
Justice Department Gives Pharmacy Benefit
Manager
Medco 30 Days To Respond to Whistleblower
Charges
08/21/2002
The Justice Department has sent a letter to
Medco Health
Solutions giving the pharmacy benefit
manager 30 days to
respond to "sealed whistle-blower lawsuits"
against the
company or to enter into settlement
discussions, the Wall
Street Journal reports. Although neither
Medco, a subsidiary of
Merck & Co., nor the U.S. Attorney's Office
in Philadelphia
would reveal the full contents of the
letter, the Journal reports
that it pertains to a four-year federal
investigation that may have
discovered "serious issues about the way
pharmacy benefit
managers work." According to a Medco
statement, the letter
gives a "preliminary assessment" of the
investigation and
"summarizes the remedies the government
could seek if it
could prove violations of the law." The
letter to Medco, which
manages drug benefits for 65 million
Americans, "comes amid
increasing scrutiny" from lawmakers about
how pharmacy
benefit managers negotiate discounts from
drug makers in
exchange for promoting manufacturers'
products, the Journal
reports. The letter also comes at a time
when the Bush
administration is working to establish a
drug discount card
program that relies on pharmacy benefit
mangers. The Justice
Department also is conducting a fraud
investigation of
pharmacy benefit manager AdvancePCS,
according to a June
filing from the U.S. Attorney's Office
(Martinez, Wall Street
Journal, 8/21).
