WASH­ING­TON-Glax­o­SmithK­line LLC will pay US$3 bil­lion and plead guilty to pro­mot­ing two pop­u­lar drugs for un­ap­proved us­es and to fail­ing to dis­close im­por­tant safe­ty in­for­ma­tion on a third in the largest health care fraud set­tle­ment in US his­to­ry, the Jus­tice De­part­ment said Mon­day. The US$3 bil­lion fine al­so will be the largest penal­ty ever paid by a drug com­pa­ny, Deputy At­tor­ney Gen­er­al James M Cole said. The cor­po­ra­tion al­so agreed to be mon­i­tored by gov­ern­ment of­fi­cials for five years to at­tempt to en­sure the com­pa­ny's com­pli­ance, Cole said. "Let me be clear, we will not tol­er­ate health care fraud," Cole told a news con­fer­ence at the Jus­tice De­part­ment. He would not say whether any com­pa­ny ex­ec­u­tives were un­der in­ves­ti­ga­tion. The com­pa­ny's guilty plea and sen­tence have to be ap­proved by a fed­er­al court in Mass­a­chu­setts. "For far too long, we have heard that the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal in­dus­try views these set­tle­ments mere­ly as the cost of do­ing busi­ness. That is why this ad­min­is­tra­tion is com­mit­ted to us­ing every avail­able tool to de­feat health care fraud," Act­ing As­sis­tant At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Stu­art F Del­ery, head of Jus­tice's civ­il di­vi­sion, said at the news con­fer­ence. (AP)