Class action OKd in McKesson case

A federal judge ruled that consumers and other parties who sued McKesson Corp., the biggest U.S. drug distributor, may pursue their claims of inflated prices as a group, a law firm for the class said.

Consumers and third-party payers had claimed in a 2006 complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Boston, that San Francisco-based McKesson had entered into a secret agreement to inflate the reported “average wholesale price” of thousands of drugs. That benchmark is used by insurance companies and the federal government to determine payments to pharmacies.