BATON ROUGE - The state of Louisiana settled its lawsuits against CVS Health for $45 million, Attorney General Liz Murrill announced Friday.

WBRZ previously reported that Louisiana settled two of the lawsuits. The dispute started over the role of pharmacy benefit managers in Louisiana, resulting in CVS sending messages to customers warning about state legislation that would ban pharmacy benefit managers from owning retail pharmacies.

Pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs, are middlemen among pharmaceutical companies, pharmacies and insurance companies. They're intended to negotiate prices for manufacturers and pharmacies, but critics say the PBMs negatively impact smaller, local pharmacies as well as consumers.

The state's suits against CVS were related to consumer communications on pending legislation, alleged regulatory issues in PBM practices by CVS and harm to Louisiana’s independent pharmacies due to unfair competition, the Attorney General said.

"These funds will be used to implement pharmacy benefit legislation and Medicaid fraud initiatives in collaboration with the Inspector General and the Louisiana Department of Health," Murrill said in a statement.