Teva is in legal trouble again, this time for allegedly defrauding Medicare!

In the aftermath of the opioid crisis and price manipulation, Teva, the Israeli pharmaceutical giant, is once again in legal trouble, this time over allegedly defrauding Medicare.
, U.S. federal prosecutors sued Teva, accusing it of paying hundreds of millions of dollars to two foundations as part of a plan to boost the sale of its multiple sclerosis drug Copaxone, an injection of acetic acid.
, according to a complaint filed in U.S. District Court in Massachusetts, Teva paid more than $300 million in kickbacks to The Assistance Fund and the Chronic Disease Fund from 2006 to at least 2015.
the money was ostensibly to support the foundation's continued efforts to help patients pay co-payments, but the U.S. Department of Justice said Teva conspired with the organizations to ensure maximum donations to Copaxone patients.
prosecutors allege that the subsidies, which allowed Teva to more than five times increase Theaxone's costs without making patients feel the impact of the cost and switch to other drugs, undermined Medicare co-pay's role in market-checking drug prices.
prosecutors said the actions violated federal anti-kickback laws, meaning taxpayers were liable for rising prices.
the lawsuit states: "Teva's purpose is to ensure that patients using Copaxone never face the high prices the company charges for their drugs, thereby inducing patients, including Medicare patients, to purchase the drug."
result, it increased Copaxone's sales and caused Teva's revenue to far exceed its payments to the foundation.
" U.S. government will seek compensation and "recover all illegal profits, including those made by Teva as a result of illegal inducements," Teva said in a statement to several media outlets, including Reuters and the Wall Street Journal, adding that the lawsuit "seeks only to further restrict patients' access to important medicines and health care services."
for many years, Copaxone has been a money-slinging tree for Teva.
peak, the drug brought in more than $3 billion in revenue in a year.
2015, the launch of Copaxone generics has consumed market share, so the drug has played a major role in the decline of Teva.
after the failure of its development of successors and new heavy drugs, Teva's share price has fallen from nearly $70 in 2015 to about $10 today as it plunges into price-fixing and opioid lawsuits and generic drug prices fall.
, however, the company has been looking for a turnaround in recent years.
2017, Teva hired Kare Schultz, Nordnod's former executive vice president and chief operating officer, as its chief executive, and under its leadership, Teva achieved $4.5 billion in revenue in 2019, $100 million more than expected.
in the opioid negotiations, Kare Schultz successfully argued that "we don't have that much money" and instead struck a settlement centered on donating anti-addiction drugs, with little cash to pay.
This spring, Teva withdrew from negotiations on criminal price monopoly charges, threatening that the case could shut down the company and saying that "the U.S. government would not be willing to take such drastic action against a drugmaker during the COVID-19 pandemic."
week, when U.S. states doubled their demands on opioid manufacturers and announced plans to seek a $26.4 billion settlement, Teva was not on the list.
source: Opioids, price-fixing and now kickbacks. Mores add another 'enriching' scheme to the claims against Teva.