Abbott Laboratories agreed to pay nearly $385 million to settle allegations the Lake County-based company made baby formula at an unsanitary plant whose products were recalled as regulators investigated two infant deaths.
Abbott will pay $384,999,040 to resolve allegations that it caused false claims to be submitted to federal and state programs between January 1, 2018, and December 31, 2022, for powdered infant formula and nutritional therapy products made at its plants in Sturgis, Michigan, and Casa Grande, Arizona, that did not meet federal and state requirements, the U.S. Department of Justice said.
The company, which is headquartered in Abbott Park in unincorporated Lake County, will pay $348,700,868 to the United States under the federal False Claims Act and $36,298,172 to certain states for claims through their Medicaid and Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children (WIC) programs, according to the Justice Department.
More than half of all infant formula purchased in the United States is paid for through WIC, which is funded by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Justice Department said.
State Medicaid programs also pay for certain infant formula.
The settlement resolves a whistleblower lawsuit that Scott Millard, Kristine Cooper and Loren Cooper, who worked for Abbott, filed in October 2022 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan under the False Claims Act, which allows private citizens to sue on behalf of...
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