GlaxoSmithKline says that the US Department of Justice had launched an investigation into the company to determine whether certain of its pricing policies violated Medicaid rules.
In a filing made with the US Securities and Exchange Commission earlier this week, the UK behemoth said that it was cooperating with the investigation, and had provided documents and information regarding the pricing arrangements for a number of its products.
The probe is being conducted by the same government attorneys that are conducting an investigation into whether several companies, including GSK, had broken the law by inflating the average wholesaler price for certain drugs, which is used to calculate the amount the Medicaid programme reimburses for the products.
It is proving to be a bad week newswise for GSK, beginning with the US Food and Drug Administration’s seizure of batches of the company’s diabetes treatment, Avandamet (rosiglitazone/metformin), and its anti-depressant, Paxil CR (paroxetine controlled-release), for failure to meet the agency’s standards [[09/03/05c]]. Then, the company said that it would not be able to give exact financial guidance for 2005, because of uncertainty over how the drug seizure would affect the figures [[09/03/05c]].
