Philadelphia Is a Center for Government Whistleblowers

Philadelphia, PAThe US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania has become a hub for government whistleblowers and their lawsuits over the past few years, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports.

In one of the first of many significant whistleblower cases that have been brought against drug companies, federal prosecutors were used to help reach a $345 million settlement to resolve allegations that a Schering-Plough Corp. subsidiary overcharged the government for Claritin, an allergy medicine.

Overall, the attorney's office has recovered around $4 billion from drugmakers since the Schering case, according to a recent summary released by the office. According to a report by the non-profit group Public Citizen, that number is reportedly close to one-quarter of the total money that has been recovered from the drug industry by state and federal prosecutors across the country in that period.

"The Philadelphia office is considered one of the premier offices in the country for handling these kinds of whistleblower claims," one lawyer who helped represent the three employees of the Schering subsidiary told the news provider.

According to a release from the US Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, the office recovered nearly $1 billion in 2010 from pharmaceutical whistleblower cases.