US FTC sues drug 'gatekeepers' over high insulin prices
By Jody Godoy and Ahmed Aboulenein
Sept 20 (Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued the country's three largest pharmacy benefit managers on Friday, accusing them of steering diabetic patients towards higher priced insulin in order to reap millions of dollars in rebates from pharmaceutical companies.
The caseaccuses UnitedHealth Group Inc's UNH.N Optum unit, CVS Health Corp's CVS.N CVS Caremark and Cigna Corp's CI.N Express Scripts of unfairly excluding lower cost insulin products from lists of drugs covered by insurers.
Driving down drug prices has been a key goal for the Joe Biden administration, and Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, has emphasized her work for patients, and in particular on lowering insulin prices,on the campaign trial.
The conduct hurt patients, such as those with coinsurance and deductibles, who were not eligible for the rebated price. The three PBMs together administer 80% of all prescriptions in the U.S., according to the case, which was filed in the FTC's in-house court.
The suit also named Zinc Health Services, Ascent Health Services, and Emisar Pharma Services, purchasing organizations created by the companies in recent years.
Rahul Rao, Deputy Director of the FTC's Bureau of Competition, said in a statement that the three pharmacy benefit managersare "medication gatekeepers" that have "extracted millions of dollars off the backs of patients who need life-saving medications."
"Millions of Americans with diabetes need insulin to survive, yet for many of these vulnerable patients, their insulin drug costs have skyrocketed over the past decade thanks in part to powerful PBMs and their greed," he said.
The FTC did not sue the three major makers of insulin, Eli Lilly LLY.N, Sanofi SASY.PA, and Novo Nordisk NOVOb.CO, but it did criticise their role in what it called a broken system, and said it reserves the right to sue the pharmaceutical companies later.
The three PBMs have criticised the FTC's approach to the industry, accusing it of bias. Express Scripts sued the FTC earlier this week seeking to force it to withdraw a report that said PBMs enrich themselves at the expense of smaller pharmacies.
Reporting by Jody Godoy in New York and Ahmed Aboulenein in Washington; Editing by Aurora Ellis
免责声明: XM Group仅提供在线交易平台的执行服务和访问权限，并允许个人查看和/或使用网站或网站所提供的内容，但无意进行任何更改或扩展，也不会更改或扩展其服务和访问权限。所有访问和使用权限，将受下列条款与条例约束：(i) 条款与条例；(ii) 风险提示；以及(iii) 完整免责声明。请注意，网站所提供的所有讯息，仅限一般资讯用途。此外，XM所有在线交易平台的内容并不构成，也不能被用于任何未经授权的金融市场交易邀约和/或邀请。金融市场交易对于您的投资资本含有重大风险。
所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。
本网站上由XM和第三方供应商所提供的所有内容，包括意见、新闻、研究、分析、价格、其他资讯和第三方网站链接，皆保持不变，并作为一般市场评论所提供，而非投资性建议。所有在线交易平台所发布的资料，仅适用于教育/资讯类用途，不包含也不应被视为适用于金融、投资税或交易相关咨询和建议，或是交易价格纪录，或是任何金融商品或非应邀途径的金融相关优惠的交易邀约或邀请。请确保您已阅读并完全理解，XM非独立投资研究提示和风险提示相关资讯，更多详情请点击 这里。
