In August 2026, the Florida Attorney General’s Office brought a lawsuit against two pharmacy benefit managers (“PBMs”), Prime Therapeutics LLC and Express Scripts Inc., alleging that the defendants had entered into an agreement to fix the price of reimbursement rates paid to retail pharmacies in Florida. As stated in the complaint, PBMs act on behalf of health plan sponsors to facilitate the dispensation of prescription drugs and process claims to the health plan’s members, and they compete against each other based on the terms offered to health care sponsors and the number of pharmacies the PBMs have contracted with to dispense drugs. The complaint alleges that in order attract pharmacies to join its network, Prime had to offer higher reimbursement rates to pharmacies than ESI.  It then alleges that starting in December 2019, the defendants entered an agreement where Prime agreed to match ESI’s lower reimbursement rates, which effectively ended competition between the two companies for contracting with retain pharmacies to dispense drugs. The complaint states that the resulting lowering of reimbursements harmed pharmacies in the state and could result in pharmacies leaving the market entirely, leaving Florida residents with fewer choices.

The complaint alleges that the defendants’ conduct violated the Florida Antitrust Act, the Florida Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act, and constituted unjust enrichment of the defendants.