State awards $41 million Medicaid contract

ACS Inc., the Dallas-based company responsible for administering Oahu's short-lived traffic camera program, has been awarded a $41 million, five-year contract with the state Med-Quest Division to support claims processing in the state's Medicaid program.

ACS serves as Medicaid fiscal agent or facilities manager in 13 states and the District of Columbia, processing more than 250 million Medicaid claims per year. In October, Queen's Medical Center outsourced its hospital information technology system to a division of ACS in a seven-year contract worth $27 million.

ACS is a Fortune 1,000 company employing more than 35,000 people in 35 countries. The company provides business process and information technology to clients.

29 states are suing drug maker Bristol-Myers

COLUMBUS, Ohio >> Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. is being sued by 29 states that say the drug maker acted illegally to maintain its monopoly on the cancer-fighting drug Taxol and keep cheaper generic versions off the market.

The lawsuit, filed yesterday, claims that Bristol-Myers fraudulently obtained patents that had no legal validity for Taxol, one of the most widely used treatments for breast and ovarian cancer.

Ohio was the lead plaintiff on the lawsuit, which said the company's actions delayed generic versions of Taxol from entering the market by at least 30 months. That forced hospitals, cancer patients and states to pay almost 30 percent more for Taxol treatments, the lawsuit said.

The states are seeking unspecified damages. Hawaii is not a party to the suit.

Daiei says quarterly sales down from last year

TOKYO >> Daiei Inc., a supermarket chain operator in the throes of corporate rehabilitation, said its same-store sales in the March-May quarter came to almost the same level as those in the same period last year.

Daiei said preliminary sales figures in both March and April fell about 1.3 percent from a year earlier but those in May increased some 2 percent from a year before. Since unit prices in May dropped about 4 percent from a year earlier due to a bargaining campaign for foodstuffs and other goods, the company faces a challenge of how to secure profits.