The lawsuit charges Amgen - along with a specialty group purchasing organization known as International Nephrology Network and the ASD Healthcare wholesaler - with offering kickbacks to medical providers to increase sales of its Aranesp anemia drug, Aranesp. The multi-state suit, by the way, joins a whistleblower lawsuit filed in 2006 by Amgen sales reps.

The companies encouraged health care providers to bill third-party payers such as Medicaid for free Aranesp in hopes of taking business away from Johnson & Johnson’s Procrit. Amgen also conspired with INN and ASD Healthcare to provide sham consultant agreements, weekend retreats and other services to get them to purchase and prescribe Aranesp (here is the lawsuit).

“Drugs should be prescribed to patients on the basis of need, effectiveness, and safety, not on a corporate giant’s promise of an all-expense paid vacation. In an egregious violation of the law, Amgen allegedly bribed medical providers and left taxpayers footing the bill for free drug samples,” Cuomo says in a statement.

“We believe that the allegations are without merit, and we look forward to the opportunity to examine these matters with the states before the Court,” Amgen spokesman David Polk wrote Bloomberg News. He added that Amgen’s Code of Conduct is called “Do the Right Thing,” and employees are expected to follow it, but declined further comment.

Aranesp has lost sales since 2006, Bloomberg notes, when high doses of the drug were linked to higher rates of heart attack and death in kidney patients. Aranesp sales fell 25 percent in 2008 to $3.1 billion from $4.1 billion in 2006. Aranesp was approved by the FDA in 2001 to treat anemia associated with renal failure and in 2002 to treat chemotherapy-induced anemia.