By admin 
PHOENIX (AZFamily) — Arizona is going after pharmacy supply chain middlemen, claiming they drove up drug prescriptions, which contributed to the opioid crisis.
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Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes said Thursday her office has filed a consumer fraud lawsuit against Express Scripts and Optum.
They are two of the largest pharmacy benefit managers in the country — companies that act as middlemen between insurers, drug manufacturers and pharmacies.
Mayes claims Express Scripts and Optum used their market power and access to real-time prescription data to help drive up opioid prescribing for more than two decades.
The two companies are accused of secretly striking rebate deals with opioid manufacturers, such as Purdue Pharma, to give OxyContin and other opioids preferred status. In exchange, Express Scripts and Optum also allegedly skipped basic safeguards for the opioids, like prior authorization or step therapy, that would normally slow down the opioid prescriptions.
“These pharmacy benefit managers repeatedly violated Arizona law and placed the health and safety of Arizonans at risk,” Mayes said in a statement. “By designing formularies and safety programs around profit instead of patient protection, Express Scripts and Optum helped fuel the opioid crisis in our state. Arizona families deserve accountability for conduct that contributed to addiction, overdose, and death.”
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Express Scripts and Optum also sent out misleading materials that downplayed addiction risks and sold prescriber and patient information to drug makers so they could find high-volume prescribers and target them, the attorney general’s office said.
“We allege that these PBMs had access to granular data indicating potentially illegitimate prescriptions, doctor‑shopping, and dangerous dosage patterns, but prioritized speed and profitability in their mail‑order operations over basic steps to prevent the diversion of opioid medication,” said Mayes.
The lawsuit is looking to force the two companies to hand back profits they made from the alleged scheme, suffer civil penalties, pay restitution and stop the alleged practices altogether.
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