A federal court in Washington state has granted several pharmacies a win in their lawsuit against Express Scripts Inc. for its conspiracy with Prime, Benecard, and Magellan. The pharmacies claim that the smaller PBMs, in effect, rented Express Scripts’ market power, paying it to be able to impose on pharmacies Express Scripts’ relatively low reimbursement rates and relatively high fees.
Express Scripts had argued that the case had to be litigated in its hometown in Missouri and could not proceed as a class action. The federal court rejected those arguments. Express Scripts had also contended that the pharmacies had not made strong enough allegations to support an antitrust claim. The court ruled the opposite—that the pharmacies could go forward under the theory that Express Scripts engaged in price fixing with its competitors, the strongest kind of antitrust claim.
