TALLAHASSEE – Florida Attorney General James Uthmeier’s office has sued nine companies for allegedly working together to drive up insulin prices.
Uthmeier’s office this week filed a lawsuit against three manufacturers that supply more than 90 percent of the world’s insulin (Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi), three pharmacy benefit managers that process roughly 80 percent of U.S. prescriptions (CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx) and rebate aggregators Zinc, Ascent and Emisar.
Uthmeier
“These companies told Florida families they were working to make insulin affordable,” Uthmeier said. “Instead, they inflated the sticker price of a medicine people cannot live without and left Florida patients to pay it.
“My office is holding them accountable.”
The complaint, filed September 22 in the Eleventh Judicial Circuit, alleges the companies inflated published list prices for insulin and related diabetes drugs and paid rebates and fees to the PBMs in exchange for preferred formulary placement so both sides profited when the sticker price rose.
“Florida families deserve to be treated fairly, especially our most vulnerable residents,” Representative Danny Alvarez said. “When companies take advantage of the people who can least afford it, there must be consequences and that’s what this lawsuit will help figure it out.
“I'm grateful to Attorney General Uthmeier for standing up for Floridians and making sure all wrongdoing is held to account, and they answer for the harm they may have caused.”
Uthmeier’s office says insulin has two prices: the published list price and the net price the manufacturer keeps after rebates. Many patients – the uninsured, those in a deductible and those on percentage-based coinsurance – are charged against the list price, not the negotiated one.
Approximately 2.3 million Florida adults – about one in 10 – have diagnosed diabetes. Patients who cannot live without this medicine were left to pay the inflated list price. A Lilly executive testified that of every $280 vial of Humalog, Lilly hands about $210 – roughly 75 percent – back to pharmacy benefit managers as rebates and discounts in exchange for placing the drug on the list of medicines a health plan will cover.
The lawsuit also covers GLP-1 and combination products including Ozempic, Trulicity, Victoza and Soliqua. The complaint brings two counts under the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act and one count under the Florida Antitrust Act.
Uthmeier’s office seeks a permanent injunction, restitution, disgorgement, damages, civil penalties and other relief.
