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(Iowa) -- The state of Iowa is suing 18 Pharmacy Benefit Managers and insulin manufacturers.
Iowa Attorney General Brenna Bird filed the lawsuit, asserting the insulin manufacturers and Pharmacy Benefit Managers, or PBMs, have artificially inflated the price of insulin through manipulation that has resulted in a pricing scheme and increased profits. The Iowa Attorney General's office says insulin manufacturers have priced insulin at $300 to $400 in Iowa, when the same amount of insulin is sold for less than $5 in other countries. The lawsuit argues that as a result, Iowans have been overcharged by millions of dollars a year.
The PBMs and insulin manufacturers in the suit include:
- Eli Lilly and Company
- Novo Nordisk Inc.
- Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC
- Evernor Health, Inc. (Formerly Express Scripts Holding Company)
- Express Scripts, Inc.
- Express Scripts Administrators, LLC
- ESI Mail Pharmacy Service, Inc.
- Express Scripts Pharmacy, Inc.
- Medco Health Solutions, Inc.
- CVS Health Corporation
- CVS Pharmacy, Inc.
- Caremark Rx, LLC
- CaremarkPCS Health, LLC
- Caremark, LLC
- UnitedHealth Group, Inc.
- Optum, Inc.
- OptumRx, Inc.
- OptumInsight, Inc.
The full petition is available on the Iowa Attorney General's website.