Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill said on Tuesday she had filed three separate lawsuits against CVS CVS.N for unfair, deceptive and unlawful practices “that have harmed Louisiana patients, independent pharmacies, and the public at large.”
The state is seeking both injunctive relief and restitution, Murrill said on a post on social media platform X.
In one of the lawsuits, Murrill alleged that CVS’ business practices with independent pharmacies of Louisiana constituted unfair competition and were in violation of state regulations.
Murrill also claimed that CVS’ pharmacy benefit management unit, CVS Caremark, “controls multiple, interlocking stages of the pharmaceutical supply and reimbursement chain — from insurance to drug pricing, to pharmacy distribution and dispensing.
“Our focus is and remains (on) serving the people of Louisiana…We look forward to working productively with policymakers to continue to make prescription drugs more affordable and accessible and to promote the value of community pharmacy,” CVS said in an emailed response.
Pharmacy benefit managers (PBM) serve as intermediaries, negotiating prescription drug prices with drugmakers on behalf of employers and health plans. They also often manage pharmacy networks and operate mail-order pharmacies.
PBMs’ business practices have drawn increasing scrutiny in recent years from U.S. lawmakers looking to lower drug prices, state attorneys general and from the Federal Trade Commission, which released a report earlier this year accusing PBMs of inflating drug costs.
States across the United States have passed laws seeking to limit PBMs’ influence on drug pricing, including in Arkansas, where a new state law – set to go into effect next year – bars PBMs from owning retail pharmacies.
CVS and Cigna’s CI.N Express Scripts filed lawsuits in May seeking to overturn the Arkansas state law, saying it puts an unconstitutional restriction on interstate commerce.
(Reporting by Sneha S K and Siddhi Mahatole in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel and Shinjini Ganguli)
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