Case Overview
Keller Rohrback L.L.P. represents multiple government entities bringing claims against three of the major manufacturers of insulin: Eli Lilly, Novo Nordisk, and Sanofi-Aventis, as well as the three largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs): CVS Health/Caremark, Express Scripts, and OptumRx, and their associated Group Purchasing Organizations (GPOs): Zinc Health Services LLC, Ascent Health Services LLC, and Emisar Pharma Services LLC. The claims are based on the skyrocketing cost of insulin these government entities have incurred for employees and beneficiaries of their self-funded medical coverage plans, costs which have risen more than tenfold over the past twenty years.
The CDC reports that more than 11% of the U.S. population has diabetes, and insulin is essential for survival for many diabetics. Rather than making insulin affordable and consistent with the actual cost to manufacture these products, these defendants have taken advantage of this population, exploited the health care system, and intentionally increased costs for no other justification than to increase their profits. In particular, the PBMs—industry middlemen who negotiate drug prices and create drug “formularies” that determine which drugs are available to patients and how much they pay for them—conspired with the insulin manufacturers to artificially inflate the price of insulin for their own collective and financial benefit.
