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September 13, 2015

Amgen Whistleblowing Case

ACCT 530
Ethical Obligations and Decision Making in Accounting

Lisa Moreaux

Amgen Inc. is a pharmaceutical company based out of California. In 2009, there were 15 states that filed lawsuits against the company for accusations of participating in Medicaid kickback schemes. In 2007, Amgen’s board of directors discovered a potential problem with the dealings of post-market complaints regarding their drugs. Amgen was out to push the sale of their new drug Aranesp, which was developed to treat amnesia associated with chronic renal failure. They employed Shawn O’Brien to take a deeper look into the company’s process to make sure they were abiding by the Food and Drug Administration federal laws and reporting problems properly after they hit the market. The following report will summarize the ethical issues surrounding the case along.
Federal law requires after-market reporting on all new drugs under the FDA drug compliance program; however, Amgen violated both ethical and legal standards. The integrity of the company was jeopardized when they chose to withhold information received regarding adverse effects of the drug. Shawn O’Brien was a senior project manager who was hired to improve the company compliance process with FDA reporting. He became aware of the lack of reporting complaints and took this information to top management and was told to be quite about his findings. When he did not comply, he was later fired. O’Brien was forced to take legal action. He sued the company under the “whistleblower-protection” act of Sarbanes Oxley. Whistleblowing which is protected under section 806 of the Sarbanes-Oxley (SOX) act of 2002, provides legal protection to employees of public companies that report suspected violations for a variety of federal offenses.
Amgen’s code of conduct clearly states that all staff members are required to adhere to the laws, and act on good judgment. This code of conduct was obviously breached as Amgen’s unethical behavior contributed greatly to the problems with Medicaid kickbacks. A kickback is when payment or something of value is given with the intention of influencing the decision of that person, or company. In this case in 2009, it was alleged that the biotech company provided kickbacks to medical providers to boost sales. Physicians were influenced to bill Medicaid for the anemia drug, Aranesp which were given free. Further, the company made a profit of $15 million from the top-selling drug in exchange for giving doctors expensive gifts to include lavish, all-expense paid vacations.
The public expectation is that doctors are going to do and prescribe what is in the patient’s best interest. The public considered this scandal to have an unethical dilemma because taxpayers were forced to pay all the bills that physician offices filed on a drug that was given free of charge. In addition to paying the bills filed for the free medication, the taxpayers must also pay for the services rendered for the health problems the medication caused. The medication caused stroke, heart attacks, and tumors in which the patients had to go to a physician to be diagnosed. Doctors and nurses take oaths that are built to guide and render the best services possible and practice in an ethical way and this was completely disproven in this case.
Amgen has pled guilty in this case resulting in several settlements in both the Medicare kickback and the whistleblower lawsuits. In concluding, Amgen failed in all of the ethical issues in business as well as violating legal standards. They misled the public and purported the Medicare system that’s designed to serve and lawfully support American taxpayers. In the Amgen case and in my opinion, the public was not served well and Amgen’s code of conduct was not upheld.
References

Mintz, Steven. Ethical Obligations and Decision Making in Accounting: Text and Cases. 2nd Edition. McGraw-Hill Learning Solutions, 2011.

Drug Compliance Programs. Retrieved from: http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/GuidanceComplianceRegulatoryInformation

Pollack, A. (2009, October 30). Amgen Is Accused of Illegal Kickbacks. Retrieved September 13, 2015

Amgen to Pay U.S. $24.9 Million to Resolve False Claims Act Allegations.
Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov on September 13, 2015

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