Miami-Luken is separately fighting a Drug Enforcement Administration effort to take away its distribution license. In February 2016, Miami-Luken settled for $2.5 million with West Virgina's attorney general over allegations of flooding the state with painkillers.
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The letter said Congress is trying to understand the company’s prescription opioid distribution practices in West Virginia “in light of reports that distributors may have supplied the state with questionable high quantities of drugs.”
The 55-year-old firm distributes pharmaceuticals and other supples to pharmacies in Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia, western Pennsylvania, and southern Michigan.
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The letter requests documents like Miami-Luken’s response to the DEA effort to take away its distribution license, a copy of its protocols for how employees should report suspicious drug orders, and any documents related to its drug order distributions to certain West Virginia pharmacies.
The letter also asks for all documents related to the company’s ousted former chief executive, Anthony Rattini. The letter says Miami-Luken Chairman of the Board Joseph Mastandrea plans to testify that Rattini was removed as DEA inquiries increased and he decided Rattini was not having the company comply with the DEA.
The congressional committee wants to know if anyone else was removed besides Rattini.
The Congressional investigation was partially prompted by ongoing reporting by the Charleston Gazette-Mail, which has been investigating the flood of powerful prescription painkillers into the state.
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The Gazette-Mail’s reporting found in six years, drug wholesalers brought 780 million hydrocodone and oxycodone pills into the state, which divides out to 433 pain pills for every adult and children. The investigation found an example of a pharmacy in a town of 392 that received 9 million hydrocodone pills in two years.
“If these reports are true, it would appear that the state of West Virginia may have received extraordinary amounts of opioids from distributors beyond what that population could safely use,” the committee’s letter stated.
The DEA has alleged that Miami-Luken failed to effectively control the drugs it distributed and failed to disclose suspicious orders of controlled substances like oxycodone and hydrocodone, to customers in southern Ohio, eastern Kentucky and southern West Virginia.
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