About F%$#ing Time

Someone has finally sued some of the Big Pharma companies and pharmacy benefits managers under RICO for conspiring to drive up the cost of insulin.

What took them so long?

Diabetes giants Sanofi, Eli Lilly and Novo Nordisk, plus a trio of pharmacy benefit managers will have to face racketeering charges over claims they systematically hiked the price of insulin drugs.

U.S. District Judge Brian Martinotti on Friday denied motions by the defendants—which also include PBM bigwigs OptumRx, Caremark and Express Scripts—to scrap claims under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.

Martinotti did drop antitrust claims under the Robinson-Patman Act, meant to stop distributors from charging different prices to retailers, and the Sherman Antitrust Act, which more broadly targets monopolies. 

………

The RICO claims stand for now, given the plantiff's compelling case that the drugmakers may have engaged in bribery, plus mail and wire fraud, Martinotti said in the court filing.

Both companies said they can't speak further on ongoing litigation. Eli Lilly did not immediately respond to Fierce Pharma's request for comment.

Last year, drug wholesalers filed a lawsuit accusing Novo, Lilly and Sanofi of boosting prices of their insulin analog drugs through rebates with PBMs, in turn securing favorable placement on those benefit managers' prescribing lists, the court filing states.

I want to see the folks behind this frog marched out of their offices in handcuffs, because these actions are not just civil, they are criminal. 

When these senior executives start getting thrown in jail, we will see a reduction in this sort of criminality.