February 2008 - A state court jury awarded Alabama $215 million in its Medicaid drug-price fraud suit against an AstraZeneca PLC unit. The state claimed the unit, AstraZeneca Pharmaceuticals LP, made Alabama's Medicaid system pay too much for drugs prescribed to its patients by inflating prices. The circuit court jury said the subsidiary must pay $40 million in compensatory damages and $175 million in punitive damages.

Jere Beasley, founding shareholder of Beasley, Allen, Crow, Methvin, Portis & Miles, P.C., represented the State of Alabama. AstraZeneca is one of more than 70 pharmaceutical manufacturers Alabama Attorney General Troy King filed suit against in 2005 over drug prices for Medicaid recipients. The suit against AstraZeneca was the first to go to trial.