By Jody Godoy
(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 Optum unit, CVS Health Corp’s 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)
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