Medisca, an ingredient supplier to compounding pharmacies, will pay $21.75 million to resolve allegations of false and inflated prices, according to the Justice Department.
The Texas-based company was accused of knowingly inflating the average wholesale prices for resveratrol, an anti inflammatory, and mometasone furoate, a corticosteroid, to increase reimbursement earnings.
Medisca bought resveratrol for about $0.37 per gram, repackaged and sold for about $2 per gram, and reported an average wholesale price of $777 per gram, the Justice Department said in a Nov. 1 news release. Mometasone furoate was bought for about $8 per gram, repackaged and sold for more than $1,000 per gram, and had a reported AWP higher than $7,300 per gram.
The alleged fraudulent pricing scheme caused Medisca's compounding pharmacy customers to bill federal programs inflated amounts for compounded medications with those ingredients.
Doug McMakin, former owner and operator of a compounding pharmacy that bought ingredients from Medisca, filed these claims in a whistleblower lawsuit. Mr. McMakin will receive $3.4 million from the settlement.