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CVS, UnitedHealth, Cigna sue to block FTC case over insulin prices

The complaint is the latest move in a bitter legal fight between the U.S.'s three largest so-called pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, and the FTC.

The FTC in September sued CVS's Caremark, Cigna's Express Scripts and UnitedHealth's Optum Rx in the agency's administrative court, accusing those PBMs and other drug middlemen of using a "perverse" rebate system to boost their profits while inflating insulin costs for Americans. In a statement Tuesday, FTC spokesperson Douglas Farrar said "it has become fashionable for corporate giants to argue that a 110-year-old federal agency is unconstitutional to distract from business practices that we allege, in the case of PBMS, harm sick patients by forcing them to pay huge sums for life saving medicine. CVS Health, UnitedHealth Group and Cigna sued the Federal Trade Commission, claiming the agency's case against drug middlemen over high insulin prices in the U.S. is unconstitutional.

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