McKesson Corporation will pay $18 million to settle allegations that it improperly set temperature monitors used in shipping vaccines under its contract with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

McKesson was represented by Ty Howard of Bradley Arant in Nashville, Tennessee.

The amended complaint was not available from the federal court in Nashville.

The original whistleblower complaint was filed on July 24, 2012 by Terrell Fox, a former finance director at McKesson Specialty Distribution, under the qui tam provisions of the False Claims Act.

Fox’s share of the settlement has not been determined.

But the judge in the case did seal a number of the exhibits of the original complaint and the amendmed complaint.

Federal officials alleged that McKesson failed to comply with the shipping and handling requirements of its vaccine distribution contract with the CDC.

Under the contract, McKesson provided distribution services, receiving vaccines purchased by the government from manufacturers and then distributing the vaccines to health care providers.

The government alleged that the contract required McKesson to ensure that during shipping, the vaccines were maintained at proper temperatures by, among other things, including electronic temperature monitors set to detect when the air temperature in the box reached two degrees Celsius and below or eight degrees Celsius and above.

The government alleged that, from approximately April 2007 to November 2007, McKesson failed to set the monitors to the appropriate range, and as a result, knowingly submitted false claims to the CDC for shipping and handling services that did not satisfy its contractual obligations.

According to the CDC, redundant measures were and are used to ensure vaccines are kept at appropriate temperatures during shipping.

The most important of these were validated packing procedures used to maintain proper vaccine temperatures.  Temperature monitors provided a secondary safeguard.