Connecticut Attorney General William Tong has carved off Connecticut’s piece of a $700 million nationwide settlement over the alleged improper marketing of the opioid addiction recovery medicine Suboxone.
Tong and his counterparts in all 49 other states had alleged that pharmaceutical distributor Reckitt Benckiser Group’s marketing and promotion of the drug had led to improper expenditures of state Medicaid funds and had violated the federal and state False Claims Act.
Connecticut will receive $18.8 million from the civil settlement, which resolves the allegations against the company.
The settlement relates to alleged actions that took place between 2010 and 2014.
The AGs had accused Reckitt Benckiser of promoting Suboxone to doctors for patients without a medically accepted indication and for uses that were unsafe, ineffective and medically unnecessary; making misleading or false claims that a Suboxone film that’s placed under the patient’s tongue was less susceptible to diversion and abuse; and of taking steps to fraudulently delay the entry of generic competition for Suboxone in an attempt to improperly control pricing.
“Reckitt Benckiser knowingly promoted the sale of suboxone for unsafe, ineffective and unnecessary purposes, reaping undue profits from states and the federal government while imperiling the lives of countless individuals,” Tong said in a statement. “This settlement sends a strong message that states across the nation are united in taking aggressive action against those who fraudulently and callously contributed to the opioid epidemic.”
