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Teva Pharmaceuticals (NYSE: TEVA) is facing another legal challenge, less than a year after reaching a global settlement to resolve all claims related to its role in the opioid epidemic across the United States.

On Tuesday, U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Andrew Lelling filed a civil complaint against Teva Pharmaceuticals USA and Teva Neuroscience (collectively Teva) for allegedly violating the False Claims Act.

In the lawsuit, U.S. Attorney Lelling alleged that Teva caused the submission of false claims to Medicare due to the kickbacks it paid in the form of unlawful co-pay subsidies for patients using Copaxone, its drug for multiple sclerosis (MS).

The pharmaceutical company allegedly used two charitable foundations to illegally pay Medicare patients’ co-pays for Copazone while steadily increasing the price of the drug.

Teva allegedly “knowingly and willfully violated the anti-kickback statute”

Teva allegedly paid more than $300 million in illegal kickbacks to Chronic Disease Fund (CDF) and The Assistance Fund (TAF) to cover the Copazone co-pays for Medicare patients from 2006 to 2015.

During the relevant period, Teva increased the price of Copaxone at a rate over 19 times the rate of inflation from approximately $17,000 per year to over $73,000 per year” while subsidizing the co-pays for the drug through CDF and TAF.” The pharmaceutical company “knowingly and willfully violated the anti-kickback statute…,” according to the complaint.

The scheme allowed Teva to generate profits that are far greater than the illegal kickbacks it funneled to the charitable foundations.

In a statement, U.S. Attorney Lelling said, “Teva’s alleged kickbacks undermined the Medicare program’s co-pay structure, which Congress created as a safeguard against inflated drug prices.”

On the other hand, Phillip Coyne, Special Agent in Charge at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General, commented, “Drug manufacturers that offer kickbacks in order to boost profits – as alleged in this case – drive up health care costs for everyone and undermine the public’s trust in the health care system. Our agency, working closely with our law enforcement partners, will continue to thoroughly investigate such corrosive schemes.”

Meanwhile, DOJ Civil Division Acting Assistant Attorney General Ethan P. Davis vowed that the department “will continue to root out these unlawful kickback arrangements that undermine the integrity of federal health care programs.”

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