The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) announced on December 29, 2011 that GE Healthcare Inc. will pay $30 million plus interest in order to settle allegations that its subsidiary, Amersham Health Inc., violated the False Claims Act (FCA). According to the DOJ, Amersham Health violated the FCA by causing Medicare to overpay for a radiopharmaceutical used in cardiac diagnostic imaging procedures.

The radiopharmaceutical, Myoview, is used to detect heart disease and see blood flow in images of hearts. The drug is distributed in multi-dose vials, and the number of doses available from the vials is part of the formula used to determine Medicare payment rates for the drug. The DOJ claims that Amersham Health provided false or misleading information regarding the number of doses available from vials, which, in turn, caused the federal government to pay artificially inflated Medicare rates for the drug.

The settlement arises from a 2006 qui tam whistleblower lawsuit filed under the FCA. The whistleblower sold a drug called Cardiolite, a competitor of Myoview. The whistleblower will recover $5.1 million from the DOJ’s $30 million recovery.