April 2 (Reuters) - The Federal Trade Commission put on

hold a lawsuit against pharmacy-benefit manager (PBM) units of

UnitedHealth ( UNH ), Cigna ( CI ) and CVS Health ( CVS ) over

insulin prices after the Trump administration fired two of the

agency's commissioners.

The two Democratic commissioners, Alvaro Bedoya and Rebecca

Kelly Slaughter, who had voted in favor of the lawsuit against

the PBMs, were fired last month.

In court filings this week, the FTC said the case will be

put on hold for 105 days, as there were no sitting commissioners

available to participate.

Of its five sitting commissioners, two were fired, two

removed from the case, and one resigned when Trump took office.

The FTC lawsuit accuses the PBMs 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.

"CVS Health ( CVS ) is confident the facts are on our side -

drugmakers alone set the price of insulin - and we will continue

to defend the case vigorously to protect our ability to make

insulin affordable for American businesses and their members,"

David Whitrap, vice president, External Affairs at CVS, told

Reuters in a statement.

UnitedHealth ( UNH ) and Cigna ( CI ) did not immediately respond to

Reuters' requests for comment.

The three companies own the country's largest PBMs -

Caremark, Optum and Express Scripts.

PBMs act as middlemen between drug companies and consumers.

They 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.

Bedoya and Slaughter sued U.S. President Donald Trump last

month saying their removals violated federal law and a

90-year-old U.S. Supreme Court precedent upholding agency

independence.

(Reporting by Puyaan Singh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini

Ganguli)