(Reuters) – Eli Lilly and Co has received a subpoena from the U.S. Department of Justice related to its New Jersey plant that makes its COVID-19 treatment, the drugmaker said in a filing on Thursday.
The drugmaker said it was cooperating fully with the investigation.
Lilly said it had previously engaged external counsel to conduct an independent investigation of certain allegations relating to the Branchburg plant.
“Lilly is deeply committed to manufacturing high-quality medicines for patients who need them, and the safety and quality of our products is our highest priority,” the company said.
Reuters reported earlier this month that the company’s employees have accused a factory executive of altering documents required by government regulators in an effort to downplay serious quality control problems at the manufacturing site in Branchburg, New Jersey.
The unsigned report, filed April 8 in Lilly’s confidential employee complaint system and reviewed by Reuters, asserts that the executive rewrote findings by Lilly technical experts at the plant, which has been under investigation by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, to make the conclusions appear more favorable to the company.
(Reporting by Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva)
