CVS Health Beats Whistleblower’s Worthless Services Drug Suit

CVS Health Corp. defeated a whistleblower’s False Claims Act suit alleging that the company billed the government for worthless biologic drugs damaged by flawed shipping methods, a Pennsylvania federal judge said.

Whistleblower Stan Ellis, a salesperson for a company selling cold-chain packaging supplies didn’t prove that the drugs Medicare and Medicaid purchased were medically worthless, Judge Gerald A. McHugh of the US District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania said in a Monday opinion granting CVS summary judgment.

Ellis said CVS violated the FCA because its shipping methods made the drugs systematically vulnerable or unmarketable, but those theories “would ...