In July 2020, Indivior Inc. and Indivior plc agreed to pay $300 million to resolve False Claims Act cases alleging that that the marketing of Suboxone caused false claims to be submitted to government health care programs between 2010 and 2015.  Like the previous year's settlement against Indivior parent company Reckitt Benckiser, the Indivior companies paid the settlement to resolve claims that they had knowingly (a) promoted the sale and use of Suboxone to physicians who were writing prescriptions that were not for a medically accepted indication and that lacked a legitimate medical purpose, were issued without any counseling or psychosocial support, were for uses that were unsafe, ineffective, and medically unnecessary, and were often diverted; (b) promoted the sale or use of Suboxone Film to physicians and state Medicaid agencies using false and misleading claims that Suboxone Film was less susceptible to diversion and abuse than other buprenorphine products and that Suboxone Film was less susceptible to accidental pediatric exposure than tablets; and (c) submitted a petition to the Food and Drug Administration claiming that Suboxone Tablet had been discontinued “due to safety concerns” about the tablet formulation of the drug and took other steps to delay the entry of generic competition for Suboxone to improperly control pricing of Suboxone, including pricing to federal healthcare programs.   This conduct stemmed largely from Relators' claims of off-label marketing and related claims in the qui tam lawsuits.

In addition to the civil settlement, Indivior agreed to pay another $300 million in criminal fines and penalties, bringing the total paid by the Indivior companies to $600 million, and the total paid by both Reckitt Benckiser Group and Indivior, combined, to over $2 billion.  Indivior also pleaded guilty criminally to a felony for having made false statements to the Massachusetts Medicaid program relating to health care matters.  Further, Indivior plc's former CEO, Shaun Thaxter, also pleaded guilty to a federal crime in connection with these matters and served time in a federal prison.

We represented one of the Relators who filed a qui tam suit against Reckitt Benckiser and the Indivior companies.