In late May, pharmaceutical company Sanofi-aventis agreed to pay $95.5 million in order to settle a charge that one of the company’s former subsidiaries intentionally violated the False Claims Act by over reporting the costs of some of its drugs.
In order to sell three of its nasal sprays—Azmacort, Nasacort and Nasacort AQ—to Medicaid, the company advertised that it sold the products to consumers at a higher value than its actual market price. This violated the Medicaid Drug Rebate Statute that requires companies to sell drugs to Medicaid for the best price that it offers to everyday consumers.
The $95.5 million will be broken down into three parts: $49 million will go to the U.S. government, $40 million will go to state Medicaid programs that overpaid for the drugs and the remainder will go to other public health entities that overpaid for the products.

