Aggrostats

Today, Attorney General Liz Murrill announced three separate lawsuits against CVS Health Corp, CaremarkPCS Health, LLC, and their affiliated entities for unfair, deceptive, and unlawful practices that have harmed Louisiana patients, independent pharmacies, and the public at large. The State is seeking both injunctive relief and restitution.

“Today, I have filed multiple lawsuits against CVS Health Corp, CaremarkPCS Health, LLC, and their affiliated entities for unfair, deceptive, and unlawful practices that have harmed Louisiana patients and independent pharmacies. I believe CVS used their customers' personal information that was given to them to fill their prescription, to lobby for their own corporate interests against pending legislation in the State Legislature. PBM’s are not managing the costs of drugs – they are driving the price up! CVS and other PBM’s continue to hide behind various confidentiality clauses to cover up the way they are manipulating drug prices – it’s wrong and unlawful. CVS will have to account for its actions.” - Attorney General Murrill

Lawsuit 1 – Text Messages

On June 11, 2025, CVS sent urgent text messages to customers—illegitimately using contact information obtained under the guise of prescription and health notifications—to oppose House Bill 358. These texts and other forms of communication were inaccurate, misleading, and deceptive. They were clearly intended to incite fear among vulnerable people regarding their medical needs to garner their support to lobby the legislature against pending legislation that CVS opposed. In every respect, CVS’s use of its pharmacy customers’ contact information to send text messages spreading lies to serve its own political agenda of maintaining its anti-competitive economic position—to the obvious detriment of the public interest—creates unethical and deceptive acts, in violation of public policy and established standards of decency.

Lawsuit 2 – PBM Abuse

CVS Caremark controls multiple, interlocking stages of the pharmaceutical supply and reimbursement chain—from insurance to drug pricing, to pharmacy distribution and dispensing. This structure gives it market power not just horizontally (as one of the largest PBMs), but vertically across multiple tiers of the healthcare system. For Example:

• CVS Caremark acquired Aetna in 2018—one of the largest health insurers in the United States. Through Aetna, CVS designs and manages plans that use Caremark as the PBM and CVS as the pharmacy. Aetna operates in Louisiana across multiple plan types, including: Medicaid, Medicare, individual and small business
• CVS operates MinuteClinics, HealthHUBs, and home infusion services, and provides chronic care and medication adherence programs (run through the PBM and pharmacy), and therefore has vertical control over diagnosis, prescription, and fulfillment.

In addition, CVS’s rebate system causes drugs to cost more than they would in a properly functioning competitive market. In a competitive market, price competition should drive lower prices over time, especially when generic or biosimilar alternatives are available. Through the use of a foreign group purchasing organization, CVS can even obscure actual net drug costs and enable double dipping of rebates and administration fees.

Lawsuit 3 – Harm to Louisiana Independent Pharmacies

CVS’s business practices with the independent pharmacies of Louisiana constitute unfair competition, and are deceptive and substantially harmful to the public, in violation of La. R.S. 51:1405. Specifically, CVS’s abuse of its enormous market power to impose unethical and exceedingly high fees on independent pharmacies—under threat of being expelled from the CVS network—amounts to unfair competition and unfair trade practice. CVS is abusing its enormous market power to engage in covert spread pricing to further enrich itself at the expense of the independent pharmacies in its network.

“For too long, big drug middlemen called PBMS, have inflated drug prices and taken advantage of Louisianans. I’m proud to stand with Attorney General Liz Murrill in holding them accountable. This month, CVS went too far by sending a politically charged and unethical message to its customers, and we won’t let that go unanswered. In Louisiana, we refuse to be intimidated by the fear tactics of these middlemen. Our focus remains on lowering drug prices and ensuring a fair, transparent pharmaceutical market," said Governor Landry.