Washington

THE Food and Drug Administration (FDA) plans to look into making some unusual allies in order to limit the consumption of opioid painkillers - health insurers and companies that manage prescription-drug benefits.

FDA commissioner Scott Gottlieb, who is mounting a sweeping overhaul of the regulation of these addictive pills, plans to meet the benefit payers and insurance administrators in September; these are groups that the FDA has not typically worked with in its role as a drug regulator.