FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Kentucky’s attorney general has expanded an opioid-related lawsuit to target another major pharmacy benefit manager that he says contributed to the state’s deadly addiction crisis.
OptumRx has been added as a up-to-date defendant in the lawsuit filed two months ago, Attorney General Russell Coleman said Tuesday. Its claims against Optum and its affiliated entities are similar to those originally brought against Express Scripts, which remains a defendant in this case.
The Republican attorney general accused Optum of playing a central role in what he called the reckless advertising, dispensing and oversupply of opioids. OptumRx controls a pharmacy network consisting of approximately 67,000 retail pharmacies nationwide, the lawsuit says.
Kentucky has been ravaged by the addiction crisis, resulting in some of the nation’s highest overdose death rates.
“These groups pursued a profit-driven agenda at the expense of Kentucky families who have empty seats at the dinner table,” Coleman said in a news release.
Optum did not immediately respond to emails seeking comment Tuesday. When it was sued in September, Express Scripts responded that it had long worked to combat opioid overuse and abuse and would “vigorously contest these baseless allegations in court.”
Coleman initially filed the lawsuit in state court, but both sides disputed whether it should be filed in state or federal court, his office said. He wants the case to be heard in state court.
Coleman has accused the defendants of using disingenuous marketing to promote sales of highly addictive drugs. They also dispensed opioids through mail-order pharmacies without effective controls, a violation of Kentucky and federal law, he said.
It seeks, among other things, civil penalties for any willful violation of the Kentucky Consumer Protection Act, as well as any other remedies the court deems appropriate.
“The defendants have concealed their conduct through non-transparent business practices and by claiming from every company with which they do business, such as: “Requiring companies, such as opioid manufacturers, to enter into confidentiality agreements or otherwise keep their agreements confidential,” the lawsuit says.
Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) handle prescription drug coverage for health insurers and employers that offer coverage. They lend a hand decide which medications to include in a plan’s formulary or list of covered medications. You can also control where patients go to fill their prescriptions.
PBMs have drawn the ire of politicians, patients and others for years. PBMs say they play an essential role in controlling drug costs and pass on the majority of the discounts they negotiate to their customers.
State lawsuits against pharmacy benefit managers are the latest — and perhaps last major — frontier in years-long legal battles over the U.S. opioid drug epidemic
Drug manufacturers, wholesalers and pharmacy chains have already faced numerous lawsuits and settled many of them, with most of the money going to combat the overdose and addiction crisis.
In the 1990s, overdose death rates from opioid painkillers began to steadily rise, followed by waves of deaths led by other opioids such as heroin and, more recently, illicit fentanyl. The decline in drug overdose deaths in the U.S. appears to have continued this year, giving experts hope that the country is seeing sustained improvement in the ongoing epidemic.
Drug overdose deaths fell nearly 10% in Kentucky in 2023, marking the second consecutive annual decline, but state leaders say deaths remain tragically high and the fight against the drug epidemic is far from over was over. Nearly 2,000 Kentuckians died of drug overdoses last year.
