The FTC on Friday sued the nation's three largest pharmacy benefits managers that negotiate insulin prices, arguing the drug middlemen use practices that boost their profits while "artificially" inflating costs for patients. The suit targets UnitedHealth Group's Optum Rx, CVS Health's Caremark and Cigna's Express Scripts. All are owned by or connected to health insurers and collectively administer about 80% of the nation's prescriptions, according to the FTC. The FTC's lawsuit also includes each PBM's affiliated group purchasing organization, which brokers drug purchases for hospitals and other health-care providers. The agency said it could recommend suing drugmakers Eli Lilly, Sanofi and Novo Nordisk in the future as well over their role in driving up list prices for their insulin products.
The Health Resources and Services Administration has threatened Johnson & Johnson with sanctions if the company proceeds with plans to alter payment methods for some hospitals that participate in a federal drug discount program. In a letter sent on Tuesday, HRSA maintained that a J&J plan to issue rebates for two widely prescribed medicines instead of offering discounted prices would violate federal law. The agency argued the planned move is unlawful because it would require the hospitals to purchase the medicines at prices exceeding what the discount program permits. Last month, J&J announced it would change payment terms for its Xarelto blood thinner and the Stelara plaque psoriasis treatment through the 340B drug discount program. To ensure the program achieves this goal, drug companies that want to take part in Medicare or Medicaid must offer their medicines at a discount — typically, 25% to 50%, but sometimes higher — to participating hospitals and clinics.
For the first time in decades, public health data shows a sudden and hopeful drop in drug overdose deaths across the U.S. 'This is exciting,' said Dr. Nora Volkow, head of the National Institute On Drug Abuse, the federal laboratory charged with studying addiction. 'This looks real. This looks very, very real.' National surveys compiled by the CDC already show an unprecedented decline in drug deaths of roughly 10.6%. That's a huge reversal from recent years when fatal overdoses regularly increased by double-digit percentages. Some researchers believe the data will show an even larger decline in drug deaths when federal surveys are updated to reflect improvements being seen at the state level, especially in the eastern U.S.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., renewed his criticism of drugmaker Novo Nordisk on Tuesday, claiming that the CEOs of major generic pharmaceutical companies have told him that they can produce and sell its blockbuster diabetes drug Ozempic for less than $100 a month. Sanders made the remark at an expert roundtable event on Capitol Hill, which served as a preview to Novo Nordisk CEO Lars Fruergaard Jørgensen's testifying before the Senate HELP Committee next week. In June, Jørgensen agreed to testify over the pricing of Ozempic in the U.S., as well as that of the drugmaker's hugely popular weight loss drug Wegovy. Novo Nordisk charges around $1,300 a month for Wegovy in the U.S., even though the drug can be purchased for $186 a month in Denmark, $137 in Germany and $92 in the United Kingdom.
Cigna's pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts has filed a lawsuit against the FTC over the agency's recent report on PBMs, which highlighted their contribution to soaring drug prices in the U.S. Express Scripts has asked a federal judge in St. Louis, Missouri, to order the FTC to withdraw the report and recuse the agency's Chair, Lina Khan, from taking any action against the company. The report released in July detailed how the six largest PBMs control nearly 95% of all prescriptions filled in the U.S. through years of vertical integration and market concentration. In addition to Cigna's Express Scripts, the report cited PBMs run by CVS Health, UnitedHealth), and Humana. The FTC released its findings as an interim report following a two-year investigation into PBMs' business practices.
The market for weight-loss treatments is expected to see 16 new drugs vying for a slice of the lucrative business currently dominated by Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, according to estimates from analysts at Morningstar and Pitchbook. In a joint report this week, analysts estimated the market for obesity treatments could expand to $200 billion by 2031. The 16 drugs could launch by 2029, with roughly $70 billion of the GLP-1 market coming from these new challengers.