Agency to Scrutinize the Impact of Vertically Integrated Pharmacy Benefit Managers on the Access and Affordability of Medicine
The Federal Trade Commission announced today that it will launch an inquiry into the prescription drug middleman industry, requiring the six largest pharmacy benefit managers to provide information and records regarding their business practices. The agency’s inquiry will scrutinize the impact of vertically integrated pharmacy benefit managers on the access and affordability of prescription drugs. As part of this inquiry, the FTC will send compulsory orders to CVS Caremark; Express Scripts, Inc.; OptumRx, Inc.; Humana Inc.; Prime Therapeutics LLC; and MedImpact Healthcare Systems, Inc.
“Although many people have never heard of pharmacy benefit managers, these powerful middlemen have enormous influence over the U.S. prescription drug system,” said Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina M. Khan. “This study will shine a light on these companies’ practices and their impact on pharmacies, payers, doctors, and patients.”
The Commission’s inquiry will examine pharmacy benefit managers’ role at the center of the U.S. pharmaceutical system. Pharmacy benefit managers are the middlemen who are hired to negotiate rebates and fees with drug manufacturers, create drug formularies and surrounding policies, and reimburse pharmacies for patients’ prescriptions. The largest pharmacy benefits managers are now vertically integrated with the largest health insurance companies and wholly owned mail order and specialty pharmacies.
In these roles, pharmacy benefit managers often have enormous influence on which drugs are prescribed to patients, which pharmacies patients can use, and how much patients ultimately pay at the pharmacy counter. Many of these functions depend on highly complicated, opaque contractual relationships that are difficult or impossible to understand for patients and independent businesses across the prescription drug system.
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