Indiviors former parent ponies up a whopping $1.4B to settle Suboxone marketing probe

With the feds sniffing around Indiviors aggressive marketing of its opioid addiction treatment Suboxone, the forecast looked bleak for the drugmaker. The stink was bad enough that Indivior’s former parent company is paying a steep price to clear its name—to the tune of $1.4 billion. Reckitt Benckiser settled with the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission for $1.4 billion Thursday to end multiple federal probes into an alleged scheme to push sales of the opioid addiction treatment Suboxone Film. The payout ranks as one of the largest in recent memory for pharma marketing, with only a handful of drugmakers ever having paid billion-dollar settlements. The single largest settlement on record was GlaxoSmithKline's criminal and civil payout of $3 billion in 2012, with the most recent seven-figure check signed by Teva in 2015 for $1.2 billion. Reckitt's settlement only covers allegations dating to the period before Indivior's 2014 spinoff, Indivior said in a statement. Reckitt was not directly named in the feds' criminal investigation, and prosecutors are still investigating Indivior’s own marketing of Suboxone. The company was indicted on criminal charges in April. “While RB has acted lawfully at all times and expressly denies all allegations that it engaged in any wrongful conduct, after careful consideration, the Board of RB determined that the agreement is in the best interests of the company and its shareholders,” the company said in a statement. While the settlement could represent a “high-water mark” for a possible payout from Indivior, the Suboxone maker will likely fight its case in court, which could take years, Jefferies analysts said in a note to investors Thursday.