AP
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Walgreens has agreed to pay up to $ 350 million in a regulation with the United States Ministry of Justice, which has accused the pharmacy of illegally fulfilling millions of prescriptions over the past decade for opioids and other controlled substances.
The national pharmacy chain must pay the government at least $ 300 million and owes yet another $ 50 million if the company is sold, merged or transferred before 2032, according to the regulations reached last Friday.
The complaint of the government, filed in January before the American district court of the Northern Illinois district, alleys that Walgreens knowingly completed millions of illegal prescriptions of controlled substances between August 2012 and March 2023. These include prescriptions for opioids and excessive prescriptions filled in significantly fulfilled early.
“We are strongly disagreed with government’s legal theory and admit no responsibility,” said Walgreens spokesman, Fraser Onerman, in a statement. “This resolution allows us to close all the disputes related to opioids with federal, state and local governments and provides favorable terms from the point of view of cash flows while we focus on our recovery strategy.”
In the midst of visits to stores and drops in decreasing market share, Walgreens announced that it would close 1,200 stores across the country last October. Rite Aid filed for a balance sheet at the end of 2023, because he also dealt with loss and regulations of opioid trials. The United States Ministry of Justice brought a similar complaint against CVS in December.
The complaint indicates that Walgreens’ pharmacists filled these prescriptions despite clear red flags that the orders were very likely to be invalid, and the company pressure on its pharmacists to fill them quickly. The government alleges that managers of Walgreen compliance have ignored the “substantial evidence” that its stores filled illegal prescriptions and refused important information on the opioid prescribers of its pharmacists.
According to the government, Walgreens would then have asked for the payment of numerous invalid prescriptions through Medicare and other federal health care programs in violation of the law on false complaints.
The United States Ministry of Justice has decided to reject its complaint in the light of Friday regulations.
“Pharmacies have legal responsibility to prescribe substances controlled in a safe and professional manner, and not to provide dangerous drugs just for profit,” said Attorney General Pamela Bondi in a press release. “This Ministry of Justice is determined to put an end to the opioid crisis and to hold the bad players responsible for their inability to protect patients against dependence.”
Walgreen also concluded an agreement with the Drug Encompement Administration to improve its compliance with the rules concerning the distribution of controlled substances, maintaining policies and procedures forcing pharmacists to confirm the validity of the prescriptions of controlled substances and to maintain a system of blocking the prescriptions of prescribers who produce illegitimate orders.
With the American Ministry of Health and Social Services, Walgreen has agreed to establish and maintain a compliance program which includes training, the supervision of the board of directors and periodic reports to the agency concerning the dispensation by the pharmacy of controlled substances.
“In the midst of the opioid crisis that has tormented our nation, we rely on pharmacies to avoid not facilitating the illegal distribution of these potentially harmful substances,” said Norbert E. Vint, Deputy Inspector General of the American Bureau of Personnel Management, in a press release.
The regulations solve four cases carried by the former denunciators of the employee of Walgreens. In 2022, CVS and Walgreens agreed to pay more than $ 10 billion in a multi-state regulation of proceedings brought against them during the results of the opioid crisis.
Over the past eight years, drug manufacturers, wholesalers and pharmacies have agreed by more than $ 50 billion in governments – most money was to be used to combat the opioid crisis.
