Pubdate: Wed, 18 Jan 2017 Source: Asbury Park Press (NJ) Copyright: 2017 Asbury Park Press Contact: http://www.app.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/26 LARGE OPIOID DISTRIBUTOR MUST PAY $150M OVER SUSPICIOUS SALES McKesson Corporation agreed to pay $150 million to settle allegations from federal authorities that the company failed to monitor and report suspicious sales of oxycodone and hydrocodone. The Washington Post reported on the settlement in December, gleaned from a publicly disclosed Form 8-K filed by McKesson on April 30, 2015. Tuesday was the first mention of the settlement by federal law enforcement authorities. The settlement stemmed from an earlier case. In 2008, McKesson agreed to pay $13.25 million after the government alleged it failed to create and maintain a system to detect and report suspicious orders of increasing amounts of oxycodone and hydrocodone pills to independent and small chain pharmacies. Once that system was created, McKesson failed to follow through with it, making more money in the process, the government charged. "Given a chance to implement a more robust system for monitoring the distribution of these products, the company instead chose to ignore its own compliance regime in favor of a bigger bottom-line," U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said. Karl Kotowski, Special Agent in Charge the Drug Enforcement Administration's New Jersey office, said ignoring suspicious opioid orders contributes to the heroin epidemic. "Pharmaceutical companies are our first line of defense in the fight against prescription opioid abuse," he said. The nationwide settlement requires McKesson to suspend sales of controlled substances from distribution centers in Colorado, Ohio, Michigan and Florida for multiple years in staggered suspensions. In Colorado, McKesson processed more than 1.6 million orders for controlled substances from June 2008 through May 2013, but reported just 16 orders as suspicious, all from one customer that had been recently cut off, according to the Department of Justice. The company said the Department of Justice first leveled the allegations against the company in 2013 and McKesson has been making improvements since then. "Pharmaceutical distributors play an important role in identifying and combating prescription drug diversion and abuse," John Hammergren, chairman and chief executive officer of the company, said in a prepared statement. "McKesson, as one of the nation's largest distributors, takes our role seriously." McKesson has drawn other lawsuits. Last year, West Virginia filed a law suit against McKesson in for allegedly "failing to identify, detect, report and help stop the flood of suspicious drug orders into the state." According to the complaint, McKesson delivered nearly 100 million doses of hydrocodone and oxycodone to epidemic-racked state between 2007 and 2012. - --- MAP posted-by: