April 4 (Reuters) - The U.S. Federal Trade Commission's

lawsuit against pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) over insulin

pricing practices will likely move forward again after being

paused amid President Donald Trump's firing of the agency's two

Democratic commissioners.

The FTC earlier this week had paused the case, given that

Chairman Andrew Ferguson and fellow Republican Melissa Holyoak -

the two remaining FTC commissioners - had recused themselves

because of past work on PBM-related cases.

Ferguson said in a statement on Thursday evening that he had

consulted with FTC ethics officials and decided to unrecuse

himself so the case against UnitedHealth Group Inc's ( UNH )

Optum unit, CVS Health Corp's ( CVS ) CVS Caremark and Cigna

Corp's Express Scripts could move forward.

As Virginia's solicitor general, Ferguson had advised the

state's attorney general on whether to weigh in on a class

action against PBMs.

Ferguson is expected to ask the agency's in-house court to

resume the case.

The companies did not immediately respond to requests for

comment.

The paused case was the most visible fallout from Trump's

sudden dismissal of Democratic commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya and

Rebecca Kelly Slaughter, who say the move violates settled law

and are suing the Trump administration.

Holyoak had sued Optum, Caremark and Express Scripts in her

prior role as Utah's solicitor general. She said in a statement

on Friday that she would remain recused.

PBMs negotiate volume discounts and fees with drug

manufacturers on behalf of employers and health plans, create

lists of medications that are covered by insurance, and

reimburse pharmacies for prescriptions.

The FTC in September sued the three companies, which it says

together administer 80% of all prescriptions in the U.S.,

accusing them of unfairly limiting access to insulin drugs with

lower list prices and steering diabetes patients towards higher

priced insulin in order to reap millions of dollars in rebates

from pharmaceutical companies.