Jun 62012

Massachusetts District Court Guts Relators’ Kickback and Off-Label FCA Claims on Motion to Dismiss

Jonathan F. Cohn and Joshua J. Fougere
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On June 1, Judge Rya Zobel issued a decision dismissing most of relators’ claims against pharmaceutical manufacturer Organon and two long-term care pharmacies, Pharmerica and Omnicare, concerning the antidepressant drug Remeron. Relators’ complaint was premised on allegations that defendants (1) received and/or paid kickbacks in exchange for switching patients to Organon’s preferred drugs, (2) misreported pricing and rebates associated with Organon drug sales to the federal government, and (3) promoted Organon drugs for off-label use in order to switch more patients to those drugs. The complaint alleged kickback claims against all defendants and pricing and off-label claims against Organon only.

Judge Zobel’s decision leaves little of the complaint standing. First, the court found that it lacked jurisdiction over all claims against Pharmerica and all kickback and pricing claims against Organon under the FCA’s first-to-file and public disclosure bars. Two aspects of this ruling are particularly noteworthy: (1) Following the D.C. Circuit, the court rejected relators’ contention that a first-filed complaint must satisfy Rule 9(b) because such a requirement would “frustrate the purpose of the first-to-file bar by raising the threshold for it to apply,” Slip Op. 12 n.17, and (2) It was enough for the first-filed complaint to list the Organon drug Remeron, and expressly naming defendant Organon was not necessary, id. at 15. The two complaints alleged the same essential elements of fraud and that was “sufficient to put the government on the trail.” Id. at 16. It did not matter that that these relators provided “additional details and types of kickbacks.” Id.

Second, the court dismissed off-label marketing claims brought under 31 U.S.C. § 3730(a)(1)-(3) because “if a state Medicaid program chooses to reimburse a claim for a drug prescribed for off-label use, then that claim is not ‘false or fraudulent,’ and liability cannot therefore attach for reimbursement.” Id. at 26. Relators alleged only that a state “may” deny coverage for an off-label prescription, not that any states actually did or that states must do so under the Medicaid statute. The allegation that states had a choice whether to cover such prescriptions and did, the court found, could not establish FCA liability for reimbursement claims purportedly filed because of an off-label marketing scheme. Id. at 27-28.

Third, the court dismissed claims against Omnicare premised on so-called “collateral kickbacks”—that is, incentive payments “such as research grants, sponsorship of annual meetings, data purchasing agreements, nominal-price transactions, and participation in corporate partnership programs”—because they failed to satisfy Rule 9(b). Id. at 28-33. The court found, for example, that “budget[ing] for payments to Omnicare does not confirm that such payments were actually made, that Omnicare solicited them, or that the payments were inducements to participate in the conversion or therapeutic interchange scheme alleged,” and the “conclusory allegation that ‘Omnicare actively pursued Organon to participate in corporate partnership programs, which were mainly ways to funnel money to Omnicare in exchange for Remeron prescriptions'” would not do. Id. at 33. (The court did not say whether dismissal was with or without prejudice.)

Although the court did not dismiss relators’ claims entirely, each of these rulings is critically important to limiting the scope of FCA liability that is frequently pursued in analogous cases against pharmacy providers and pharmaceutical manufacturers.

Related post: D.C. Circuit Splits with Sixth Circuit on Scope of FCA’s First-to-File Bar

Jonathan F. Cohn

jfcohn@sidley.com

Joshua J. Fougere

Washington, D.C.

jfougere@sidley.com

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