WASHINGTON DC (February 26, 2020) — Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles "Chuck" Grassley (R-IA) and Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-OR) today wrote to the president of Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefit manager (PBM), making a final request for documents as part of the committee’s investigation into skyrocketing insulin-prices. The leaders of the committee wrote that their letter would serve as final notice and a failure to comply would result in a subpoena compelling their production.
“Americans are demanding answers from PBMs and pharmaceutical companies, and we expect your company to begin providing them promptly,” Sens Grassley and Wyden wrote. “Cigna has failed to even attempt to answer many of the questions we posed.”
“Your failure to comply with the Committee’s requests has reached an endpoint,” Sens Grassley and Wyden concluded.
Sens Grassley and Wyden have engaged Cigna for nearly a year and have not received a satisfactory production of information in response to their requests. Their letter can be found HERE.
In February 2019, Sens Grassley and Wyden began their bipartisan investigation into the rapidly rising price of insulin in the United States by questioning the three leading insulin manufacturers. In April 2019, Sens Grassley and Wyden sent three letters to leading PBMs, including one to Cigna, regarding their role in the high price of insulin. Cigna was one of five PBMs represented at an April committee hearing regarding the role of prescription drug middlemen in the drug supply-chain.
The Senate Finance Committee has jurisdiction over Medicare and Medicaid. Tax-payers spend hundreds of billions of dollars annually on each federal program, including on prescription drugs. PBMs generate significant business from Medicare and Medicaid.
