California Receives Largest Share of Multistate GSK Settlement

On Wednesday, California Attorney General Kamala Harris (D) said the state will receive the largest share of a multistate settlement with British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline over allegations of illegal marketing tactics, the San Francisco Chronicle reports (Lee, San Francisco Chronicle, 6/4).

Background

In 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice announced a $3 billion settlement agreement with GSK to resolve allegations that the company broke U.S. laws in marketing several products. Under the agreement, GSK paid the settlement and pleaded guilty to misdemeanor criminal charges for illegally marketing antidepressants Paxil and Wellbutrin and for failing to report the safety data on diabetes drug Avandia.

The agreement was said to be the largest health care fraud settlement in U.S. history (California Healthline, 7/5/12).

Details of Latest Settlement

In the latest settlement announced this week, GSK has agreed to pay a total of $105 million to 44 states and the District of Columbia over allegations that the company promoted certain drugs for unapproved uses. The drugs in question included:

• Advair, an asthma drug;
• Paxil; and
• Wellbutrin (Berkrot, Reuters, 6/4).

Under the agreement, GSK is banned from paying health care providers to promote its products and from giving sales representatives incentives to promote the drugs for unapproved conditions.

Harris said that California will receive $7.1 million of the settlement (San Francisco Chronicle, 6/4).

However, GSK did not admit any wrongdoing as part of the settlement (Reuters, 6/4).