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A federal court ordered Indivior Solutions to pay $289 million in criminal penalties for unlawfully marketing Suboxone, an opioid-addiction treatment.

U.S. District Judge James Jones of the Western District of Virginia entered the sentence against Indivior Solutions in accordance with its plea agreement with the Department of Justice (DOJ).

The company pleaded guilty to making false statements to the Massachusetts Medicaid program (MassHealth) regarding the safety of Suboxone Film, a version of Suboxone, around children.

Suboxone contains the powerful opioid buprenorphine. The drug is approved for use by recovering opioid addicts to avoid or reduce withdrawal symptoms while undergoing treatment for opioid-use disorder.

The Justice Department said Indivior Solutions will pay a total of $600 million to settle its civil and criminal liabilities in the case.

The second-largest monetary resolution involving an opioid treatment

Indivior Solutions and its parent companies, Indivior Inc. and Indivior plc as well as its former parent company Reckitt Benckiser Group plc paid more than $2 billion under a 2019 settlement involving Suboxone

It is the second-largest monetary resolution obtained by the DOJ in a case involving an opioid drug.

Last year, Reckitt Benckiser agreed to pay $700 million to the settle six qui tam lawsuit filed by Pennsylvania and other states for improperly marketing Suboxone.

In June 2020, Indivior agreed to pay $10 million to finally resolve all allegations filed by Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

In a statement on Thursday, DOJ Civil Division Acting Assistant Attorney General Jeffrey Bossert Clark said, “Combating the opioid epidemic is a top priority for the Department of Justice  will hold drug manufacturers accountable when they make misrepresentations that could affect consumers’ access to opioid addiction treatments.”

On the other hand, Acting U.S. Attorney Daniel Bubar of the Western District of Virginia said, “When a drug manufacturer claims to be part of the solution to the national opioid epidemic, we expect it to make honest representations to government officials, physicians, and patients, who have to make crucial treatment decisions. Instead, Indivior made false statements about Suboxone’s safety to increase its sales. I’m proud of the close relationship we have with our federal and state partners that led to today’s important result.”

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