The Federal Trade Commission on Friday filed lawsuits against three prescription drug benefit managers or PBMs over concerns the companies are artificially inflating the list price of insulin drugs.

Pharmacy-benefit managers owned by CVS, Cigna and UnitedHealth “artificially inflated” prices for lifesaving medications, regulator alleges.

Regulators say the nation's largest pharmacy benefit managers are partly to blame for the soaring cost of insulin in the U.S.

The Federal Trade Commission sued on Friday the three largest pharmaceutical intermediaries charged with negotiating drug prices on behalf of insurers, claiming they are illegally maximizing profits by steering patients to high-cost insulin products.

The Federal Trade Commission sued the country’s three largest pharmacy benefit managers on Friday, accusing them of steering diabetes patients towards higher priced insulin in order to reap millions of dollars in rebates from pharmaceutical companies.

The Federal Trade Commission on Friday filed a lawsuit over insulin prices against the three largest pharmaceutical middlemen that negotiate prescription drug prices, arguing that the companies artificially inflate the costs of the lifesaving diabetes drug for patients.

UnitedHealth Group division calls the action “baseless” and shows “profound misunderstanding” of drug pricing.