The Alabama Supreme Court has thrown out jury decisions awarding the state more than $274 million from three pharmaceutical companies - AstraZeneca, Novartis and GlaxoSmithKline - that had been accused of manipulating prices and causing Alabama’s Medicaid program to pay too much for prescription drugs for Medicaid recipients, the Associated Press writes.

The court ruled 8-1 that the state did not have to rely on the info provided by the drugmakers in deciding what prices to pay pharmacists for drugs for Medicaid recipients. The justices said state officials could have done their own research and determined the correct price and ruled that Alabama continues to rely on the same formulas established by drugmakers to set prices, according to the AP.

“The state has never altered its course of conduct since taking issue with the reporting methods,” said the majority ruling written by Justice Tom Woodall. Justice Tom Parker cast the lone dissent, saying there was no evidence the drug manufacturers made available to the state the confidential details they used in determining price information (here is the opinion).

More than 70 lawsuits were filed in 2005 against drugmakers and the state has settled suits against 16 of the drug manufacturers for more than $124 million. Alabama Attorney General Troy King filed the lawsuits, charging them with causing the state’s Medicaid program to pay too much for meds for poor and elderly citizens. He tells the AP he was disappointed “but I respect them as having the final word.”

“I’m saddened to learn that they have allowed the drug companies to rip off the elderly and children of Alabama. Clearly the juries found fraud in these cases,” the chairman of the Senate General Fund budget writing committee, Sen. Roger Bedford, D-Russellville, tells the AP.

The lead attorney for the state in the trials of the lawsuits, former Lt. Gov. Jere Beasley, said Alabama taxpayers “are the losers today and politically powerful drug companies declared winners by the Alabama Supreme Court. This is a sad day for the Alabama Medicaid program and all Alabama taxpayers.” He plans to ask the Supreme Court to reconsider its decision.

“This confirms our position that GSK reported clear and accurate prices, that GSK’s pricing practices were consistent with established industry standards and that the state understood full well the pricing benchmarks that GSK reported,” said GlaxoSmithKline spokeswoman Mary Anne Rhyne. Last year, a jury ordered GlaxoSmithKline to pay $81 million in damages.

In the case against AstraZeneca, a jury initially awarded the state $215 million in damages, but Circuit Judge Charles Price reduced the verdict to $160 million.“The decision of the Supreme Court of Alabama confirms AstraZeneca’s longstanding position that the state’s claims against the company are unfounded,” a spokesman tells us.

A jury also ordered Novartis to pay $33 million to the state and and in February, another jury ordered Sandoz Pharmaceuticals, a Novartis unit, to pay $78.4 million to the state. The Supreme Court has not ruled in that case.

“We’re pleased by the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling today,” Ludwig Hantson, the ceo of the North American Pharma biz at Novartis Pharmaceuticals, in a statement. “NPC is committed to high ethical standards in the pricing, marketing and sale of all of our products.”