AUGUSTA, Maine - Maine will get $7.7 million as its share of a nearly $785 million settlement with drug company Pfizer for overcharges to the Medicaid program from 2001 to 2006.
Pfizer's subsidiary, drug-maker Wyeth, did not give Maine and other states the lowest price for certain popular drugs used to control gastric acid. Maine Attorney General Janet Mills says the settlement is significant.
"And it's not straight recovery, straight restitution, it's one-and-a-half times the amount estimated to have been lost by the states and federal government," Mills says, "so there is a built in penalty there."
The federal government gets most of the settlement and Maine's share will go to lowering drug costs for Mainers on MaineCare, the state's name for the Medicaid program. Mills says a small amount of the settlement will go to the Medicaid fraud unit in her office that handled the case.
