The city of Philadelphia is suing several large drug companies over an alleged pricing scheme that has driven up the cost of insulin.
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court, claims the companies conspired to increase their profit margins and raise the price of insulin while misrepresenting to the public that they were working to lower costs. It names as defendants the pharmacy benefit managers CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx, as well as drug manufacturers Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk and Sanofi.
Philadelphia is one of more than 550 state and local jurisdictions, companies and unions – including Bucks County and the University of Pennsylvania – that run their own insurance plans and have sued these drug manufacturers and pharmacy benefit managers over alleged insulin price-fixing schemes…