Justice Department sues pharmaceutical company for allegedly failing to report suspicious opioid sales

The Justice Division on Thursday alleged that the AmerisourceBergen Company, one of many nation’s largest pharmaceutical distributors, and two of its subsidiaries didn’t report lots of of 1000’s of suspicious prescription opioid orders to pharmacies throughout the nation.

The lawsuit, which spans a number of states, alleges that AmerisourceBergen disregarded its authorized obligation to report orders of managed substances to the Drug Enforcement Company for almost a decade. The corporate ignored “pink flags” that pharmacies in West Virginia, New Jersey, Colorado and Florida had been diverting opioids into unlawful drug markets, the swimsuit says.

“The Division of Justice is dedicated to holding accountable those that fueled the opioid disaster by flouting the regulation,” Affiliate Lawyer Normal Vanita Gupta stated in a press release Thursday.

“Firms distributing opioids are required to report suspicious orders to federal regulation enforcement. Our criticism alleges that AmerisourceBergen – which bought billions of items of prescription opioids over the previous decade – repeatedly didn’t adjust to that requirement,” she added.

If AmerisourceBergen is discovered liable at trial, the corporate faces billions of {dollars} in monetary penalties, the Justice Division stated.

Lauren Esposito, a spokesperson for AmerisourceBergen, countered on Thursday in a press release that stated the Justice Division’s criticism rested on “5 pharmacies that had been cherry picked out of the tens of 1000’s of pharmacies that use AmerisourceBergen as their wholesale distributor, whereas ignoring the absence of motion from former directors on the Drug Enforcement Administration – the DOJ’s personal company.”

She added: “With the huge amount of data that AmerisourceBergen shared straight with the DEA with reference to these 5 pharmacies, the DEA nonetheless didn’t really feel the necessity to take swift motion itself – actually, AmerisourceBergen terminated relationships with 4 of them earlier than DEA ever took any enforcement motion whereas two of the 5 pharmacies keep their DEA managed substance registration to today.”

But AmerisourceBergen was allegedly conscious that in two of the pharmacies, medication it distributed had been seemingly being bought in parking heaps for money, the Justice Division stated. In one other pharmacy, the corporate was allegedly warned that sufferers seemingly affected by dependancy had been receiving opioids, together with some individuals who later died of a drug overdose.

The Justice Division additionally famous in its lawsuit that AmerisourceBergen’s reporting methods for suspicious opioid orders had been deeply insufficient, and that the corporate deliberately modified its reporting methods to cut back the variety of orders flagged as suspicious amid the opioid epidemic.

Even when orders had been flagged as suspicious, AmerisourceBergen typically didn’t report these orders to the DEA, in accordance with the criticism.

Opioids are concerned within the overwhelming majority of drug overdose deaths, although artificial opioids – significantly fentanyl – have performed an outsized position. Artificial opioids – excluding methadone – had been concerned in additional than 72,000 overdose deaths in 2021, about two-thirds of all overdose deaths that yr and greater than triple the quantity from 5 years earlier.