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 US Federal Trade Commission said that CVS Health's Caremark, Cigna's Express Scripts, and UnitedHealth Group's Optum illegally steered patients to higher-priced insulins.

The agency alleges CVS’s Caremark, Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx accepted money from drugmakers in exchange for keeping lower-cost insulin off their lists of approved

The US Federal Trade Commission sued units of CVS Health Corp., Cigna Group and UnitedHealth Group Inc. on Friday, accusing the drug middlemen of engaging in illegal rebate programs that drove up the price of insulin.

"Millions of Americans with diabetes need insulin to survive, yet for many of these vulnerable patients, their insulin drug costs have skyrocketed over the past decade thanks in part to powerful PBMs and their greed,

On Friday, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a formal complaint against three major pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)—CVS Health Inc’s (NYSE:CVS) Caremark, Cigna Corp’s (NYSE:CI) Express Scripts,

The Federal Trade Commission has brought an administrative complaint against three of the country's largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), accusing them of engaging in practices that artificially inflated the list price of insulin drugs.