Pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc. and Tris Pharma Inc. agreed Wednesday to pay $41.5 million to resolve explosive claims by the state of Texas that they supplied adulterated ADHD medication to children and manipulated test results to keep the drug on the market.
The settlement ends a high-stakes lawsuit accusing both companies of violating Texas’ healthcare fraud law—a case that state officials likened to a breach of public trust involving some of the state’s most vulnerable patients.
Texas Says Firms Altered Drug Tests
Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said the companies knowingly provided substandard Quillivant XR, an ADHD medication prescribed to children on Medicaid.
The state’s 2023 lawsuit alleged that between 2012 and 2018, Pfizer and Tris Pharma quietly changed the drug’s testing methods, allowing Quillivant XR to skirt quality-control problems and pass regulatory review while failing manufacturing standards.
“I will never back down from taking on the biggest corporations in the world that deceive and take advantage of Texans,” Paxton said in a blistering statement. “Pfizer and Tris Pharma provided adulterated drugs to children for years and changed test results in order to obtain the benefit of taxpayer-funded Medicaid reimbursement.”
