(Reuters) -The U.S. Federal Trade Commission said on Wednesday it had sought information from two companies that negotiate drug rebates on behalf of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) as part of its probe into how PBMs affect pricing of prescription drugs.
The two companies, Zinc Health Services LLC, and Ascent Health Services LLC, are associated with CVS, Cigna’s Express Scripts unit, and Prime Therapeutics, the FTC said.
The FTC had earlier demanded information from the six largest PBMs in the U.S., including CVS’s Caremark, Humana Inc, Cigna’s Express Scripts and UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx.
PBMs act as middlemen and negotiate rebates and fees with drug manufacturers, create lists of medications that are covered by insurance, and reimburse pharmacies for patients’ prescriptions.
(Reporting by Manas Mishra and Mariam Sunny in BengaluruEditing by Vinay Dwivedi)
