DOJ: Pharmaceutical companies accused of mishandling opioid medications
PITTSBURGH (KDKA) - The Justice Department is suing pharmaceutical distributor AmerisourceBergen and two subsidiaries.
The department accused the companies of mishandling opioid medications.
The DOJ said the companies failed to report hundreds of thousands of suspicious orders of prescription opioids from pharmacies nationwide.
Additionally, the DOJ said, in two cases, the company knew the drugs were likely being sold in parking lots for cash.
In another instance, the company was warned addicted patients were getting opioids, including some people who later overdosed and died.
"Today's lawsuit filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania alleges from 2014 through the present, AmerisourceBergen and its subsidiaries repeatedly violated that obligation for at least hundreds of thousands of controlled substance orders. This alleged unlawful conduct includes failures to report orders from pharmacies that defendants knew were likely facilitating [the] diversion of prescription opioids like oxycodone and fentanyl," Vanita Gupta, the Associate Attorney General, said.
In response, AmerisourceBergen said the DOJ complaint cherry-picked information from the thousands of pharmacies supplied by the company.
AmerisourceBergen also accused the federal Drug Enforcement Administration of not penalizing suspicious pharmacies until after private companies pulled their contracts. The DEA's inaction forced private companies to perform the job of law enforcement.
If found liable, the company could face billions of dollars in financial penalties.