Pfizer settles Medicaid claims for $785 million

Pfizer has agreed to pay about $785 million to settle a case involving unpaid Medicaid rebates. The Department of Justice (DOJ) had alleged that Wyeth, which Pfizer acquired in 2009, broke the law by not offering to Medicaid the discounts it had offered to hospitals for its drug pantoprazole sodium (Protonix), a heartburn drug. According to officials, the miscalculations totaled hundreds of millions of dollars, while DOJ had said that total damages could exceed $2 billion. In settling the case, Wyeth did not admit to liability.