The Federal Trade Commission on Friday filed lawsuits against three prescription drug benefit managers or PBMs over concerns the companies are artificially inflating the list price of insulin drugs.

Pharmacy-benefit managers owned by CVS, Cigna and UnitedHealth “artificially inflated” prices for lifesaving medications, regulator alleges.

FTC Sues Prescription Drug Middlemen for Artificially Inflating Insulin Drug Prices – Includes Caremark, Express Scripts, Optum and Affiliates

The Big Three handle at least 80% of the country’s insulin prescriptions. The price of insulin has exponentially increased in recent years. Now, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) is suing three companies over allegedly inflating the cost of the drug at the expense of Americans who rely on it.

The Federal Trade Commission said Friday that it is suing three drug middlemen, accusing them of inflating insulin prices.

The enforcement action is part of an escalating conflict between the FTC and the three pharmacy benefit managers that together control about 80% of prescriptions filled in the US.

The Federal Trade Commission said on Friday that it had taken legal action against the three largest pharmacy benefit managers, accusing the drug middlemen of inflating insulin prices and steering patients toward higher-cost insulin products to increase their profits.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission sued the country's three largest pharmacy benefit managers on Friday, accusing them of steering diabetes patients towards higher priced insulin in order to reap millions of dollars in rebates from pharmaceutical companies.