In Alabama, AstraZeneca Fights Medicaid Lawsuit

A lawyer representing Alabama claimed AstraZeneca set up a scheme to make the state’s Medicaid system pay $40 million too much for drugs prescribed for its patients, the Associated Press reports. Jere Beasley made the comments during opening statements in the trial of a lawsuit, which accused the drugmaker of inflating the cost of its meds. “They never once provided the state with an honest and accurate price,” Beasley intoned.

AstraZeneca’s attorney, Tom Christian, told jurors the drugmaker made sure the Alabama Medicaid Agency got the best price it could for prescription drugs. “We didn’t lie to anyone,” Christian argued, and he insisted it was wrong to imply that the state ended up paying pharmacists too much money because of information the Medicaid Agency received from AstraZeneca. “The state barely paid the pharmacists enough to stay in business,” Christian maintained.

AstraZeneca is one of more than 70 drugmakers that Alabama Attorney General Troy King filed suit against in 2005 over prices. This is the first case to go trial; the state has settled with Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America and Dey, which collectively agreed to pay $6.75 million.

A jury of eight women and six men is hearing the trial before Circuit Judge Charles Price in Montgomery. The trial is expected to last at least three weeks and features some of the state’s most high-profile attorneys, including Beasley, a former lieutenant governor whose firm helped settle a major Vioxx case last year. Former Attorney General Bill Baxley is one of the lawyers representing AstraZeneca.

Beasley told jurors that much of the state’s case against the drugmaker would be based on internal memos written by AstraZeneca employees. “The evidence is going to be clear that they never thought anybody would see these documents,” Beasley told jurors, adding that the state is seeking $40 million in compensatory damages and an unspecified amount of punitive damages.

Christian shot back that AstraZeneca had done nothing to harm Medicaid recipients. He also told jurors that AstraZeneca had paid the state $40 million in rebates, and that if the state wins the lawsuit and forces lower prices, it will make it financially impossible for pharmacists to fill the prescriptions of Medicaid patients.

“If Attorney General King has his way and gets a big settlement from AstraZeneca and knocks down the price being paid to pharmacists, there won’t be any Medicaid program,” Christian warned.

Source: Associated Press