The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has announced a landmark settlement with one of the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit managers, Express Scripts, aimed at significantly lowering prescription drug costs for American patients. The settlement resolves a long-running FTC lawsuit alleging that Express Scripts used anticompetitive and unfair rebate practices that artificially inflated the list price of insulin and other drugs, ultimately increasing out-of-pocket costs for patients. Under the terms of the settlement, Express Scripts will make fundamental changes to its business practices to increase pricing transparency, align patient costs with actual net drug prices rather than inflated list prices, and support broader access to affordable prescription options.
These reforms are expected to reduce insulin and drug costs for millions of patients by up to $7 billion over 10 years, support new revenue opportunities for community pharmacies, and improve overall benefit transparency for plan sponsors and members. Additionally, the agreement includes provisions to reshape how formularies are designed and ensure that lower-cost versions of medications are no longer disadvantaged by higher rebates tied to list prices. This settlement represents a meaningful step toward greater fairness and affordability in the U.S. prescription drug market.
Read the full FTC press release here.
