MADISON – Executives from McKesson Corp. will be deposed as part of the state’s lawsuit about the distribution of opioids in West Virginia.
Chairman, President and CEO John Hammergren, West Virginia sales manager Tim Ashworth and others will be questioned over the next few months, according to court documents filed in Boone Circuit Court. The depositions, which will take place in San Francisco and Charleston, will be videotaped.
The others scheduled to be deposed are Vice President and Chief Compliance Officer Lori Schechter, President U.S. Pharmaceutical Mark Walchirk, Lead Independent Director Edward Mueller and Lead Independent Director Krista Peck.
According to the filings, lawyers representing West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey’s office will ask the officials if McKesson offered bonuses or commissions for increased opioid sales. The company has said it didn’t award such bonuses. Other questions will focus on whether company officials knew about criminal probes of the pharmacies that purchased drugs from the distributor. Also, officials will be asked how the company flags suspicious orders from drug stores.
The AG’s lawsuit recently was remanded to Boone County by U.S. District Judge David Faber. The state Department of Health and Human Resources as well as the state Department of Military Affairs and Public Safety are also plaintiffs in the suit. U.S. District Judge John Copenhaver also remanded the case to Boone County last year, but McKesson later asked to have it back in federal court.
Boone County had the third-highest prescription drug overdose death rate in the country, according to figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for 1999 to 2014.
Congress already is looking into opioid shipments by McKesson and other drug distributors to pharmacies in West Virginia. That investigation has shown that, from 2006 to 2014, McKesson shipped 5.8 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills to one pharmacy in Mount Gay, population 1,800, and another 2.3 pills to a drug store just three miles away.
McKesson argued the case should stay in federal court, saying the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency requires drug companies to report suspicious orders. But the AG’s office says state Board of Pharmacy rules are identical to federal law and prohibit McKesson and other companies from filling suspect orders of unusual size and frequency.
“It is abundantly clear that by distributing suspicious orders of controlled substances into West Virginia, McKesson violates a legal duty owed to the state to refrain from doing so,” the AG’s office wrote.
McKesson says the West Virginia Board of Pharmacy never has investigated the company or tried to revoke its license. It also says its shipments were legal under U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration guidelines.
Last year, federal officials finalized a $150 million settlement with McKesson after it was alleged the company failed to detect and report pharmacies’ suspicious orders of prescription pain pills.
The case is being heard by Boone Circuit Judge William Thompson. He has overseen similar cases against other drug distributors, including Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, which agreed to pay $36 million to settle lawsuits filed by the state.
Boone Circuit Court 16-C-1