(Reuters) – The pharmacy benefit management (PBM) units of Cigna Corp and Humana Inc and a third company are being sued in Ohio state over allegations of drug price fixing, the Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.
The lawsuit filed in an Ohio state court alleged that the two units, along with Prime Therapeutics LLC, shared pricing and other information gathered by a related Swiss company to gain leverage during negotiations with drugmakers for rebates, the report said.
Express Scripts, a PBM owned by health insurer Cigna, set up a firm called Ascent Health Services in Switzerland in 2019, with Prime Therapeutics, another PBM, later taking a minority stake, the report said, citing the lawsuit.
The lawsuit alleges that Express Scripts, Prime and Humana’s PBM, which is a customer of Ascent, used it to coordinate their negotiations and fix amounts of rebates.
The companies restricted coverage of some insulin products and other medicines due to the collusion, the lawsuit said, according to the report.
The companies did not immediately respond to Reuters’ requests for comment.
(Reporting by Mariam Sunny and Raghav Mahobe in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
