FTC Sues CVS, Cigna, UnitedHealth Over 1,200% Insulin Price Spike

Sep 20, 2024, 04:32 PM

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit against the three largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in the United States—CVS Health’s Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth’s OptumRx. The FTC accuses these PBMs of engaging in illegal rebate programs that have artificially inflated the cost of insulin, forcing diabetic patients to pay significantly higher prices. The lawsuit claims that these practices have spiked the cost of insulin by over 1,200 percent over the past two decades. The FTC alleges that the PBMs, which administer 80% of medication in the US, steered patients towards higher-priced insulin options to reap millions of dollars in rebates from pharmaceutical companies, thereby profiting at the expense of patients. The agency has also put insulin drugmakers Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi on notice, reserving the right to sue them in the future.