Illi­nois phar­ma com­pa­ny to pay al­most $8M af­ter sell­ing OTC drugs un­der ob­so­lete pre­scrip­tion-on­ly la­bels

Illi­nois-based phar­ma com­pa­ny Ako­rn, which filed for bank­rupt­cy back in 2020, has now agreed to pay $7.9 mil­lion to re­solve al­le­ga­tions that it caused Medicare to pay false claims re­lat­ed to gener­ic drugs that had al­ready tran­si­tioned to OTC prod­ucts.

As part of the set­tle­ment, the DOJ said Ako­rn ad­mit­ted to de­lay­ing its con­ver­sion of cer­tain gener­ics — the NSAID pain drug di­clofenac, and the an­ti­his­t­a­mines olopata­dine and aze­las­tine — from pre­scrip­tion-on­ly to OTC sta­tus.

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.

SIGN UP LOG IN BECOME A PREMIUM SUBSCRIBER