Dive Brief:

• A federal judge has ordered CVS to pay $948.8 million in penalties and damages in a whistleblower case alleging that the company’s Omnicare division illegally charged the U.S. government for prescription drugs.
• Manhattan Judge Colleen McMahon imposed a $542 million penalty for what she called “very big fraud” in her Monday order, and awarded $406.8 million in damages — three times the $135.6 million that a jury awarded in the spring, as required under the False Claims Act.
• Omnicare filed more than 3.3 million false claims between 2010 and 2018, according to court documents. CVS, which acquired the pharmacy benefits manager in 2015, denied the allegations and said it planned to appeal McMahon’s decision.

Dive Insight:

A former Omnicare pharmacist filed the lawsuit in 2015 accusing the PBM of improperly billing Medicare, Medicaid and the military’s Tricare program for over $135 million in drugs that weren’t actually covered by the programs.

Omnicare — the largest long-term care pharmacy services provider in the U.S. — fraudulently dispensed drugs to elderly and disabled people in long-term care and assisted living facilities without valid prescriptions, according to the complaint.

The Department of Justice joined the suit in 2019, and a jury ruled in favor of the government last spring.

The False Claims Act allows whistleblowers to bring complaints on the government’s behalf and share in potential damages. The law is a key weapon in the government’s arsenal...

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