Cigna Sues Federal Trade Commission Over ‘Defamatory’ Report

Cigna Group’s Express Scripts sued the US Federal Trade Commission over a recent report that the company said demonizes pharmacy benefit managers and asked the court to order the agency to retract it.

The lawsuit escalates the conflict between drug middlemen and one of the top US antitrust enforcers, which has been scrutinizing the industry. Cigna’s Express Scripts unit called the FTC’s July report “unfair, biased, erroneous, and defamatory” in a lawsuit filed Tuesday in federal court in Missouri.

An FTC spokesman said the agency stands by its report.

PBMs manage prescription drug plans for employers and government programs. PBMs maintain they provide a necessary counterweight to unchecked power by drug companies to set prices. Yet they’ve faced growing criticism for opaque business practices.

The agency has spent more than two years investigating the PBM industry. Its interim report in July alleged that the drug middlemen steer patients to their own pharmacies and pay them higher rates.

Cigna and its rivals CVS Health Corp. and UnitedHealth Group Inc. have disputed those assertions and have pointed to a report commissioned by the industry that they say refutes much of the FTC’s characterization.

Cigna’s lawsuit accuses the FTC of ignoring much of the data and documents it provided the commission in favor of “unsupported innuendo” against the industry.

The agency rejected Cigna’s claims.

“This is a complicated and opaque market, and the FTC is committed to using its clear authority to help the public and policymakers understand it,” FTC spokesman Douglas Farrar said in an email.

The case is Express Scripts v. Federal Trade Commission, 24-cv-01263, US District Court, Eastern District of Missouri (St. Louis).

Photo: The Cigna Group headquarters in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Photographer: Joe Buglewicz/Bloomberg