The Department of Justice on Monday joined a whistleblower lawsuit filed against California-based Dey, a generic medication division of Germany-based Merck KGaA, over allegations that the company inflated prices reported to federal health insurance programs, the Boston Globe reports.
According to a DOJ e-mail statement, the lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, alleges that Dey inflated prices reported to Medicare and Medicaid by more than five times since at least January 1993. "
Dey engaged in a scheme to report fraudulent and inflated prices for several pharmaceutical products, knowing that federal health care programs established reimbursement rates based on those reported prices," according to the statement.
Florida-based Ven-A-Care of the Florida Keys, a home health care provider, filed the lawsuit (Boston Globe, 9/12).