F.T.C. Accuses Drug Middlemen of Inflating Insulin Prices
The New York Times
The case takes aim at the major pharmacy benefit managers, agency officials said, claiming that they favored more expensive insulin products and forced patients to pay more.
The Federal Trade Commission said on Friday that it had taken legal action against the three largest pharmacy benefit managers, accusing the drug middlemen of inflating insulin prices and steering patients toward higher-cost insulin products to increase their profits.
The legal action targets CVS Health’s Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx and subsidiaries they’ve created to handle drug negotiations, agency officials said. The three collectively control 80 percent of prescriptions in the United States. Hired by employers and government health insurance programs like Medicare, pharmacy benefit managers, or P.B.M.s, are responsible for negotiating prices with drug makers, paying pharmacies and helping decide which drugs are available and at what cost to patients.
Agency officials said they had filed an administrative complaint, which is not yet public, that accuses the P.B.M.s of distorting competition and harming consumers. The agency is seeking to prohibit the benefit managers from favoring medicines because those drugs make them more money.
The agency’s five commissioners voted on the action, with the three Democratic appointees favoring it and the two Republicans recusing themselves.
Rahul Rao, an F.T.C. official, said in a news release on Friday that the largest P.B.M.s “have extracted millions of dollars off the backs of patients who need lifesaving medications.”
He said the agency’s legal action “seeks to put an end to the big three P.B.M.s’ exploitative conduct and marks an important step in fixing a broken system — a fix that could ripple beyond the insulin market and restore healthy competition to drive down drug prices for consumers.”
New findings suggest that an extraordinarily powerful and dangerous burst of radiation might flare from our sun in the future.
Anchored by juicy braised duck and finished with an unforgettable family-size crème brûlée, this menu from Clare de Boer will have everyone talking.
The shower forms from the debris of an asteroid and peaks this weekend. But a nearly full moon could interfere with viewing.
The opposing paths taken by two powerful firms — Benchmark and Andreessen Horowitz — embody a profound debate about the future of an industry that funds and fosters American innovation.
Aaron Siri, who specializes in vaccine lawsuits, has been at Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s side reviewing candidates for top jobs at the Department of Health and Human Services.
Scientists are concerned that the H5N1 virus could set off another human pandemic. But it is already putting species under pressure in the wild.
The scarcity and fragility of rare old bottles makes them naturally memorable, but these 12 younger wines had their own unforgettable charms.
DNA from European fossils dating back 45,000 years offers new clues to how our species spread across the world.
An intense struggle has unfolded in Washington between companies and officials over where to draw the line on selling technology to China.
There’s a universal — and easy — answer to a common kitchen predicament.
More adolescents than ever are watching it. What’s needed, researchers say, are frank conversations and “porn literacy.”