TAP to be hit with $840 million fine?

TAP Pharmaceutical Products, the 50-50 USA-based joint venture betweenAbbott Laboratories and Takeda Chemical Industries, is expected to be hit with a fine of more than $840 million to settle a lawsuit over the prostate cancer drug Lupron (leuprorelin), according to an article in the Boston Globe. The firm is reported to be nearing a settlement to settle federal allegations that it illegally inflated the price of the drug, and the news comes after senior citizens recently filed a separate class-action lawsuit in the USA (Marketletter May 28), alleging that they were overcharged by many millions of dollars.

In the first case, it is alleged that TAP bribed individual doctors, including at least three in New England, with as much as $70,000 in free drug samples for which the doctors billed Medicare and the patients. The firm also allegedly offered an unnamed Massachusetts health maintenance organization $65,000 in an attempt to get it to switch from using AstraZeneca's Zoladex (goserelin). In addition, TAP is accused of manipulating the average price used for government reimbursement to ensure doctors would make at least a $100 profit per dose. Patients on Medicare often paid more than $1,000 a year for Lupron, the Globe claims.

A spokeswoman for TAP declined to comment on the class action suit to the newspaper, or the company's marketing practices, but said it was negotiating a settlement with the US attorney's office. "The discussions in the investigation are ongoing,'' she said, adding, that "TAP conducts its business ethically."