MONTGOMERY, Ala. - A state court jury awarded Alabama $215 million Thursday in its Medicaid drug price fraud suit against drugmaker AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP.

The circuit court jury said the subsidiary of Britain's AstraZeneca PLC must pay $40 million in compensatory damages and $175 million in punitive damages.

The state claimed the company made Alabama's Medicaid system pay too much for drugs prescribed to its patients by inflating prices. AstraZeneca said it got the state the best price it could.

AstraZeneca is one of more than 70 drugmakers that Alabama Attorney General Troy King sued in 2005 over drug prices for Medicaid recipients.

The suit against AstraZeneca was the first to go to trial. The state has settled cases with two other companies: Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America Inc. and Day LP.

Drugs manufactured by AstraZeneca include Nexium, which is used to treat heartburn and acid reflux, and Crestor, which is prescribed to lower cholesterol.

Montgomery attorney Jere Beasley, who represented the state, told the jury that AstraZeneca never provided the Medicaid agency with an "honest and accurate" price for its drugs.

But Tom Christian, a Birmingham lawyer representing the company, said the prices charged the state were barely enough for the pharmacists to stay in business. He said at the start of the trial that a big judgment against AstraZeneca that forces lower prices would make it financially impossible for pharmacists to fill prescriptions for Medicaid patients.