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Tulchan Communications represents British pharmaceuticals company Indivior, which was indicted by a Virginia grand jury April 9 on 28 counts of healthcare, mail and wire fraud connected to its marketing of Soboxone Film, an opioid-based drug, as a treatment for opioid and heroin addiction.
"Indivior obtained billions of dollars in revenue from Suboxone Film prescriptions by deceiving health care providers and health care benefit programs into believing that Suboxone Film was safer, less divertible, and less abusable than other opioid-addiction treatment drugs,” according to the indictment. “Indivior also is alleged to have sought to boost profits by using a 'Here to Help' program to connect opioid-addicted patients to doctors the company knew were prescribing opioids at high rates and in a clinically unwarranted manner.”
Virginia’s attorney general Mark Herring said: “Our indictment alleges a wide-ranging and truly shameful scheme to put profits over the health and well-being of patients trying to manage substance use disorder and opioid dependence. It’s incredibly frustrating that while we have been working to remove the stigma around medication-assisted treatment and make it more widely available, Indivior was allegedly conspiring to exploit patients, taxpayers, and the expansion of medication-assisted treatment."
Indivior released a three-page response to the grand jury indictment, saying it believes the Justice Dept. is fundamentally wrong and that it will contest the charges vigorously.
“We are extremely disappointed in this action by the Justice Department, which is wholly unsupported by either the facts or the law," the company said. "Key allegations made by the Justice Department are contradicted by the government’s own scientific agencies, they are almost exclusively based on years-old events from before Indivior became an independent company in 2014, and they are wrong.
"The department has apparently decided it would rather pursue self-serving headlines on a matter of national significance than achieve an appropriate resolution, but we will contest this case vigorously and we look forward to the full facts coming out in court."
Indivior shares plunged 74 percent today on the grand jury news.
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