Ohio Attorney General Jim Petro (R) on Tuesday filed a lawsuit in Common Pleas Court over allegations that five large pharmaceutical companies have defrauded the state Medicaid program of "tens of millions of dollars," the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. The lawsuit accuses the companies of "knowingly issuing false and misleading wholesale price and acquisition data" to inflate Medicaid reimbursements; the Ohio Department of Job and Family Services uses the average wholesale prices of prescription drugs submitted by pharmaceutical companies to establish Medicaid reimbursement rates for the medications (Boyer, Cincinnati Enquirer, 3/10). The lawsuit also charges the companies -- Dey; Abbott Laboratories; Pharmacia, which Pfizer acquired last year; Schering-Plough; and Warrick Pharmaceuticals -- with violations of the state Consumer Sales Practices Act, unjust enrichment and violations of state anti-kickback laws (Akron Beacon Journal, 3/10). The lawsuit seeks unspecified punitive damages compensatory damages and civil damages. Petro said, "The cost data provided by these defendants is false and misleading, resulting in prices being far higher than the wholesale prices actually charged by these companies." A Petro spokesperson said that the state attorney general may add more companies to the lawsuit (Cincinnati Enquirer, 3/10).

Pennsylvania AG Sues 13 Rx Companies
In related news, Pennsylvania Attorney General Jerry Pappert (R) on Wednesday filed a lawsuit in Commonwealth Court against 13 pharmaceutical companies over allegations that they have used "deceptive pricing and sales practices to inflate the cost of medicines for more than a decade," the Philadelphia Inquirer reports. According to the 42-page lawsuit, the companies since 1991 have offered physicians "improper incentives" to prescribe their products and inflated average wholesale prices, which the state uses to establish prescription drug reimbursements for Medicaid and other state programs, the Inquirer reports. The companies named in the lawsuit include Schering-Plough, Aventis, Tap Pharmaceutical Products, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals, Bayer, Amgen, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Baxter International, Boehringer Ingelheim, GlaxoSmithKline, Dey, Pfizer and Johnson & Johnson. The lawsuit seeks hundreds of millions of dollars for the state and consumers for overpayments on Medicaid and non-Medicaid medications; unspecified punitive damages, civil fines and legal fees; and an injunction to end the practices used by the companies, Pappert said. According to the Inquirer, the lawsuit alleges that although seven of the companies have pleaded guilty to or settled charges of "unlawful marketing and sales practices and paid fines and penalties" as part of federal Medicaid settlements, those agreements have only "partially compensated" Pennsylvania. Pappert said at a news conference, "I am seeking recovery, not just for Medicaid, but for all affected Commonwealth programs," adding, "I am trying to recover for every entity and consumer possible." In a statement, Pfizer said that the company "continues to stress that we've done nothing wrong," adding, "We strenuously deny the allegations. We'll defend against them, and we believe we'll be successful." A spokesperson for AstraZeneca said that the company has not reviewed the lawsuit (Loyd, Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/11).