{"id":690,"date":"2024-09-20T17:28:03","date_gmt":"2024-09-20T17:28:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=690"},"modified":"2024-09-20T17:28:03","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T17:28:03","slug":"ftc-to-sue-pbms-over-insulin-pricing-and-rebates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/?p=690","title":{"rendered":"FTC to sue PBMs over insulin pricing and rebates"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the FTC\u2019s press release<\/a> out today:<\/p>\n

Today, the Federal Trade Commission brought action against the three largest prescription drug benefit managers (PBMs)\u2014Caremark Rx, Express Scripts (ESI), and OptumRx\u2014and their affiliated group purchasing organizations (GPOs) for engaging in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices that have artificially inflated the list price of insulin drugs, impaired patients\u2019 access to lower list price products, and shifted the cost of high insulin list prices to vulnerable patients.
The FTC\u2019s administrative complaint alleges that CVS Health\u2019s Caremark, Cigna\u2019s ESI, and United Health Group\u2019s Optum, and their respective GPOs\u2014Zinc Health Services, Ascent Health Services, and Emisar Pharma Services\u2014have abused their economic power by rigging pharmaceutical supply chain competition in their favor, forcing patients to pay more for life-saving medication. According to the complaint, these PBMs, known as the Big Three, together administer about 80% of all prescriptions in the United States.
The FTC alleges that the three PBMs created a perverse drug rebate system that prioritizes high rebates from drug manufacturers, leading to artificially inflated insulin list prices. The complaint charges that even when lower list price insulins became available that could have been more affordable for vulnerable patients, the PBMs systemically excluded them in favor of high list price, highly rebated insulin products. These strategies have allowed the PBMs and GPOs to line their pockets while certain patients are forced to pay higher out-of-pocket costs for insulin medication, the FTC\u2019s complaint alleges. <\/p>\n

The full press release is here<\/a>. Additional coverage in Endpoints<\/a>, N.Y. Times<\/a> (including an investigation from June 2024<\/a>), CNBC<\/a>, and STAT News<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From the FTC\u2019s press release out today: Today, the Federal Trade Commission brought action against the three largest prescription drug benefit managers (PBMs)\u2014Caremark Rx, Express Scripts (ESI), and OptumRx\u2014and their affiliated group purchasing organizations (GPOs) for engaging in anticompetitive and unfair rebating practices that have artificially inflated the list price of insulin drugs, impaired patients\u2019…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-690","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=690"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/690\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=690"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=690"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medical-article.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=690"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}