Detroit — Four Michigan counties filed lawsuits against pharmacy benefit managers and pharmaceutical manufacturers Wednesday, claiming "excessive costs" for insulin in what are the first diabetes drug price-fixing lawsuits by governmental bodies in the state.
Wayne, Washtenaw, Macomb and Monroe officials announced the lawsuits at a news conference Wednesday at the Detroit Rescue Mission Ministries. Though they are the initial price-fixing lawsuits for the drug to be filed in Michigan, attorneys expect more to follow.
Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan said the city also plans to file a lawsuit, and requested on Wednesday that the City Council authorize it.
"In the city of Detroit, we have more than one out of six of our residents who are suffering from diabetes today," Duggan said. "If they are not on Medicare, they're subject to the same gouging."
The lawsuits come as the price of insulin has increased dramatically, nearly tripling between 2002 and 2013, according to the Journal of the American Medical Association Network website. The issue has drawn the attention of the Biden administration, which capped out-of-pocket insulin costs for Medicare patients at $35 last year. Biden said in 2023 that benefit should be expanded to everyone and not just those on Medicare.
The complaints were filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Jersey, where previous insulin price-fixing lawsuits were consolidated along with future municipal cases. The counties are suing to recover damages associated with the costs that county employees, retirees and their dependents, and other county programs have paid for insulin over the last 20 years.
Three manufacturers dominate the insulin market worldwide, pushing up the price and forcing many diabetic people to forgo treatment or limit their insulin use, critics have said.
The counties allege three insulin producers, Indiana-based Eli Lilly and Co., Delaware-based Sanofi-Aventis U.S. LLC and Novo Nordisk Inc., have engaged in a scheme with at least 15 pharmacy benefit managers to artificially inflate the price of insulin, according to court filings.
"Wayne County pays an awful lot of money for drugs, particularly insulin in this case for its employees, and we've been gouged and we know we've been gouged, and that money needs to be recouped," Wayne County Executive Warren Evans said. "We want that money back. We want to be able to use that money for the kinds of things that will help make health care in Wayne County an easier thing to tackle and deal with."
Macomb County expects to spend about $64 million in the 2024 budget for employees' and retirees' health care benefits. Roughly 2% of that will go for insulin costs, Hackel said.
"But it's not just with our retirees and those that are active employees," Hackel said. "We have a jail to maintain and we have to deal with managed care for inmates."
The pharmacy benefit managers and manufacturers are accused of violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act, the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, the Michigan Anti-Trust Act and the Consumer Protection Act, said Melvin Butch Hollowell, an attorney with the Miller Law Firm in Rochester, Michigan, at the news conference.
PBMs are third-party administrators of prescription drug programs for health plans including state government employee plans, commercial health plans and self-insured employer plans.
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