Interim Report from the Federal Trade Commission Underscores Need to Pass Finance Committee Legislation to Make Pharmacy Benefit Managers Accountable to Americans
Washington, D.C. – Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden, D-Ore., today issued a statement after the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) released an interim report on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) and their impact on the access and affordability of prescription drugs.
“Middlemen are right at the heart of Americans’ frustration with the health care system: high prices and red tape preventing them from getting the care they need,” Wyden said. “The FTC’s comprehensive findings show how PBMs use their market power to drive up costs for families and restrict access to preferred pharmacies at the expense of independent pharmacies. The Finance Committee overwhelmingly passed legislation to hold PBMs accountable, and I am going to the mat to deliver that bill to the president’s desk this year.”
The interim report from the FTC details how increasing vertical integration and concentration has enabled the six largest PBMs to manage nearly 95 percent of all prescriptions filled in the United States, and how PBMs have used that power to profit by inflating drug costs and squeezing independent pharmacies.
This Congress, the Finance Committee has worked on a bipartisan basis to hold PBMs accountable for business practices that increase prescription drug costs, harm patient access, and threaten independent pharmacies that so many communities count on, particularly in rural areas. Last year, the Finance Committee passed legislation to rein in PBMs.
The full report from the FTC can be found here.
A web version of this release is here.
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