Customize Consent Preferences

We use cookies to help you navigate efficiently and perform certain functions. You will find detailed information about all cookies under each consent category below.

The cookies that are categorized as "Necessary" are stored on your browser as they are essential for enabling the basic functionalities of the site. ... 

Always Active

Necessary cookies are required to enable the basic features of this site, such as providing secure log-in or adjusting your consent preferences. These cookies do not store any personally identifiable data.

No cookies to display.

Functional cookies help perform certain functionalities like sharing the content of the website on social media platforms, collecting feedback, and other third-party features.

No cookies to display.

Analytical cookies are used to understand how visitors interact with the website. These cookies help provide information on metrics such as the number of visitors, bounce rate, traffic source, etc.

No cookies to display.

Performance cookies are used to understand and analyze the key performance indexes of the website which helps in delivering a better user experience for the visitors.

No cookies to display.

Advertisement cookies are used to provide visitors with customized advertisements based on the pages you visited previously and to analyze the effectiveness of the ad campaigns.

No cookies to display.

HomeEconomyCVS, UnitedHealth, Cigna sue to block FTC case over insulin prices

CVS, UnitedHealth, Cigna sue to block FTC case over insulin prices

CVS Pharmacy logo is seen in Washington DC, United States on July 9, 2024.

Jakub Porzycki | Nurphoto | Getty Images

CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group and Cigna sued the Federal Trade Commission on Tuesday, claiming that the agency’s case against drug supply chain middlemen over high insulin prices in the U.S. is unconstitutional. 

The complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, is the latest move in a bitter legal fight between the three largest pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, in the U.S. and the FTC.

The FTC in September sued CVS’s Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx in the agency’s administrative court, accusing those PBMs and other drug middlemen of using a “perverse” rebate system to boost their profits while inflating insulin costs for Americans. 

The FTC’s in-house administrative process initiates a proceeding before an administrative judge who would hear the case. FTC commissioners then vote on that opinion.

The Tuesday complaint argues that the FTC’s process violates the companies’ due process rights under the Fifth Amendment. The companies also allege that the FTC’s claims involve private rights that must be litigated in federal court rather than in the agency’s in-house administrative court. 

The companies called that process “fundamentally unfair,” noting that commissioners and an administrative law judge are “unconstitutionally insulated from removal by the President and thus are insulated from democratic accountability.” 

“This sweeping attempt to reshape an entire industry via law enforcement would never pass muster in a US district court,” the complaint said. 

In a statement Tuesday, FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar said “it has become fashionable for corporate giants to argue that a 110-year-old federal agency is unconstitutional to distract from business practices that we allege, in the case of PBMS, harm sick patients by forcing them to pay huge sums for life saving medicine. It will not work.”

PBMs sit at the center of the drug supply chain in the U.S. They negotiate rebates with drug manufacturers on behalf of health plans, reimburse pharmacies for prescriptions and create lists of medications covered by insurance. 

The complaint comes a month after CVS, UnitedHealth Group and Cigna demanded FTC Chair Lina Khan and two other commissioners recuse themselves from the agency’s in-house suit. In separate motions, the companies argued that all three commissioners have an extensive track record of making public statements that indicate allegedly serious bias against the PBMs. 

Caremark, Express Scripts and Optum Rx are all owned by or connected to health insurers and collectively administer about 80% of the nation’s prescriptions, according to the FTC. 

Content Source: www.cnbc.com

Related News

Latest News