HHS lines up No­var­tis, Lil­ly, As­traZeneca and 3 oth­er drug­mak­ers for fines due to drug dis­count vi­o­la­tions

As drug­mak­ers con­tin­ue to bat­tle Pres­i­dent Biden’s HHS in court over al­leged 340B drug dis­count vi­o­la­tions, HHS sent let­ters on Wednes­day to six com­pa­nies in­form­ing them that their vi­o­la­tions have been re­ferred to the HHS Of­fice of the In­spec­tor Gen­er­al, which can levy $5,000 fines each.

At is­sue is whether the com­pa­nies have to of­fer dis­count pric­ing to safe­ty-net providers through cer­tain con­tract phar­ma­cy part­ner­ships. The com­pa­nies, in­clud­ing No­var­tis, Eli Lil­ly, As­traZeneca, No­vo Nordisk, Sanofi, and Unit­ed Ther­a­peu­tics, have raised con­cerns that the 340B drug dis­count pro­gram has grown be­yond what it was ini­tial­ly tasked to do, and now lines the pock­ets of cov­ered hos­pi­tals and oth­er providers. The com­pa­nies al­so de­cid­ed to stop of­fer­ing the low­ered prices to some con­tract phar­ma­cies.

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