This week Blink Health, which makes an app and online tool for helping consumers find low prices for medications, filed a new legal claim against former partner MedImpact Healthcare System alleging greed and misconduct while describing the company as a “peddler of opioids.” 

This claim comes as a second amendment to another ongoing lawsuit between the two companies, which seeks a trial by jury against MedImpact. The latest complaint lists allegations of fraud, breach of contract, and tortious interference with prospective economic relations against the company. 

According to the document, MedImpact, a pharmacy benefits manager (PBM), was allegedly “making profits by steering patients to generic opioids.”

“[The claim] will also expose MedImpact as a large-scale peddler of opioids, an epidemic that kills millions of Americans and tears communities apart,” the amendment reads. “While MedImpact holds itself out as a company that plays by the rules, it actually operates from the shadows by deceiving its commercial partners and exploiting consumers. MedImpact is a parasite on the pharmaceutical supply chain.”

Blink Health claims that MedImpact skims billions of dollars from acting as the middleman between manufacturers, pharmacies, payers, and patients. The complaint also sheds light on how the partnership went sour between Blink and MedImpact. 

Blink's claim accuses MedImpact of trying to “undermine and destroy” Blink Health by making several misrepresentations to the company about its negotiating powers and relationships with pharmacies. It claims that MedImpact manipulates pharmacies into improper clawback payments and forces pharmacies to lose money sales, knowingly submitting improper claims, and engaging in undisclosed conflicts of interest with business partners. 

"We are facing twin health care crises in the growing opioid addiction epidemic and skyrocketing prescription drug prices. MedImpact plays a starring role in exacerbating these urgent problems," Orin Snyder of Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, the attorney for Blink Health, said in a statement.

The company is now suing for money damages and punitive damages, as well as a regression of the service agreement between the companies and stock purchase agreements. 

This isn’t Blink Health’s only lawsuit in the last few years. Most recently, the company sued competitor Hippo Technologies in March for $250 million, alleging a “copycat scheme.” The lawsuit claims that Hippo, which was founded by former Blink employees, obtained trade secrets, participated in unfair competition, and took part in tortious interferences with contract and business retaliations. 

Blink was also on the other side of a lawsuit in 2017 when one of its early investors, Michael Karsch, claimed the company and its founders were guilty of a number of illegal actions including fraud, concealment, breach of contract, unjust enrichment, fraudulent misrepresentations, and violation of securities. 

MobiHealthNews has reached out to MedImpact, but has not received a reply.