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Nebraska has joined the United States and 17 other States in settling allegations against pharmaceutical manufacturer QOL Medical, LLC, and Frederick E. Cooper, the company’s Chief Executive Officer.
Attorney General Mike Hilgers announced today that Nebraska has joined the United States and 17 other States in settling allegations against pharmaceutical manufacturer QOL Medical, LLC, and Frederick E. Cooper, the company’s Chief Executive Officer.
QOL sells therapies, including its principal product, Sucraid, for patients with rare diseases.
The settlement resolves allegations that QOL induced healthcare providers and a clinical laboratory to purchase Sucraid in violation of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute, the federal False Claims Act, and state False Claims Acts. QOL and Cooper agreed to pay $47 million to resolve these claims. Of this amount, $8 million will be paid for false Medicaid claims. Nebraska’s share is $20,564.65.
QOL admitted that beginning in 2018, it distributed free breath test kits to healthcare providers and asked them to give these kits to their patients with common gastrointestinal symptoms. They claimed that the breath test could “rule in or rule out” a rare genetic condition for which Sucraid is the only FDA-approved therapy. However, the breath test did not specifically diagnose the genetic condition, and other disorders can cause a patient to test positive for that condition.
QOL then paid a clinical laboratory to analyze patients’ breath...
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