FTC eyes resuming insulin lawsuit against drug middlemen

Important legal information about the email you will be sending. By using this service, you agree to input your real email address and only send it to people you know. It is a violation of law in some jurisdictions to falsely identify yourself in an email. All information you provide will be used by Fidelity solely for the purpose of sending the email on your behalf. The subject line of the email you send will be "Fidelity.com: "

FTC eyes resuming insulin lawsuit against drug middlemen

By Jody Godoy, Reuters - 1:22 PM ET 4/4/2025 Company News

April 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's lawsuit against pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) over insulin pricing practices will likely move forward again after being paused amid President Donald Trump's firing of the agency's two Democratic commissioners.

The FTC earlier this week had paused the case, given that Chairman Andrew Ferguson and fellow Republican Melissa Holyoak - the two remaining FTC commissioners - had recused themselves because of past work on PBM-related cases.

Ferguson said in a statement on Thursday evening that he had consulted with FTC ethics officials and decided to unrecuse himself so the case against UnitedHealth Group Inc's ( UNH ) Optum unit, CVS Health Corp's ( CVS ) CVS Caremark and Cigna Corp's Express Scripts could move forward.

As Virginia's solicitor general, Ferguson had advised the state's attorney general on whether to weigh in on a class action against PBMs.

Ferguson is expected to ask the agency's in-house court to resume the case.

The companies did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The paused case was the most visible fallout from Trump's sudden dismissal of Democratic commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, who say the move violates settled law and are suing the Trump administration.

Holyoak had sued Optum, Caremark and Express Scripts in her prior role as Utah's solicitor general. She said in a statement on Friday that she would remain recused.

PBMs negotiate volume discounts and fees with drug manufacturers on behalf of employers and health plans, create lists of medications that are covered by insurance, and reimburse pharmacies for prescriptions.

The FTC in September sued the three companies, which it says together administer 80% of all prescriptions in the U.S., accusing them of unfairly limiting access to insulin drugs with lower list prices and steering diabetes patients towards higher priced insulin in order to reap millions of dollars in rebates from pharmaceutical companies. (Reporting by Jody Godoy; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

(c) Reuters 2025. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.