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US: Omnicare to pay $28 million to settle charges it got kickbacks from Abbott Labs

By  |  October 17, 2016

Omnicare the largest nursing home pharmacy in the United States, will pay about $28.1 million to resolve civil charges that it sought and received kickbacks from Abbott Laboratories to promote the drug maker’s anti-seizure drug Depakote, the US Justice Department said Monday.

Omnicare was acquired by CVS Health Corp in 2015, about six years after Omnicare put a stop to the conduct at the heart of Monday’s settlement, the Justice Department added.

The Justice Department said Omnicare disguised the kickbacks it received from Abbott by claiming they were “grants” and “educational funding.”

Those payments, however, were part of a plan by the drug maker to get physicians to prescribe Depakote to elderly nursing home patients. Omnicare solicited the payments via its “Re*View” program, which in internal documents it called its “one extra script per patient” program.

Full Content: Reuters

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