MONTGOMERY, Alabama -- A state court jury awarded Alabama $215 million in its Medicaid drug-price fraud suit against an AstraZeneca PLC unit.

The state had claimed the unit, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, made Alabama's Medicaid system pay too much for drugs prescribed to its patients by inflating prices. The firm said it had obtained for the state the best price it could for its drugs.

Medicaid is a U.S. national-state health-care program for poor and disabled people.

The circuit court jury said the subsidiary must pay $40 million in compensatory damages and $175 million in punitive damages.

AstraZeneca is one of more than 70 pharmaceutical manufacturers that Alabama Attorney General Troy King filed suit against in 2005 over drug prices for Medicaid recipients. The state settled cases with two drug makers, Takeda Pharmaceuticals North America Inc. and Day LP.

The suit against AstraZeneca was the first to go to trial.

Drugs made by AstraZeneca include Nexium, to treat heartburn and acid reflux, and Crestor, to lower cholesterol.

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

Tom Christian, a Birmingham lawyer representing the pharmaceutical maker, 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.

Federal law requires drug makers to give Medicaid the best price they offer any customer.