WEST VIRGINIA (LOOTPRESS) – According to a press release from the Department of Justice (DOJ), AmerisourceBergen Corporation and two of its subsidiaries, violated federal law in connection with the distribution of controlled substances to pharmacies and other customers across the country, contributing to the prescription opioid epidemic.
The complaint alleges that this unlawful conduct resulted in at least hundreds of thousands of violations of the Controlled Substances Act (CSA). The Justice Department seeks civil penalties and injunctive relief.
“The Department of Justice is committed to holding accountable those who fueled the opioid crisis by flouting the law,” said Associate Attorney General Vanita Gupta. “Companies distributing opioids are required to report suspicious orders to federal law enforcement. Our complaint alleges that AmerisourceBergen — which sold billions of units of prescription opioids over the past decade — repeatedly failed to comply with that requirement.”
“AmerisourceBergen, one of the largest wholesale distributors of opioids in the world, had a legal obligation to report suspicious orders to the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), and our complaint alleges that the company’s repeated and systemic failure to fulfill this simple obligation helped ignite an opioid epidemic that has resulted in hundreds of thousands of deaths over the past decade,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram.
The DOJ says that pharmaceutical distributors that sell controlled substances, including AmerisourceBergen, have a longstanding legal obligation to monitor the orders that they receive from pharmacies and other customers and must inform the DEA each and every time they receive a suspicious order.
The government’s complaint specifies several pharmacies for which AmerisourceBergen allegedly was aware of significant “red flags” suggesting the existence of diversion of prescription drugs to illicit markets.
The complaint asserts that AmerisourceBergen nevertheless continued to distribute drugs to the pharmacies for years and reported few suspicious orders to the DEA.
The five examples include: two pharmacies, one in Florida and one in West Virginia, for which AmerisourceBergen knew the drugs it distributed were likely being sold in parking lots for cash; a New Jersey pharmacy that has pleaded guilty to unlawfully selling controlled substances; another New Jersey pharmacy whose pharmacist-in-charge has been indicted for drug diversion; and a Colorado pharmacy that AmerisourceBergen knew was its largest purchaser of oxycodone 30mg tablets in all of Colorado.
The government further alleges that for this Colorado pharmacy, AmerisourceBergen specifically identified eleven patients as potential “drug addicts” whose prescriptions likely were illegitimate. Two of those patients subsequently died of overdoses.
If AmerisourceBergen is found liable, it could face escalating civil penalties depending on when each violation occurred and the type of controlled substance at issue.
