FTC cautions against relying on its past PBM advocacy as industry pushes back

The FTC on Thurs­day cau­tioned phar­ma­cy ben­e­fit man­agers against re­ly­ing on the agency’s pre­vi­ous state­ments and stud­ies in sup­port of PBMs, the mid­dle­men who ne­go­ti­ate pre­scrip­tion drug costs on be­half of health in­sur­ers — and the PBM in­dus­try is al­ready push­ing back.

Dur­ing an open com­mis­sion meet­ing Thurs­day, FTC com­mis­sion­ers vot­ed unan­i­mous­ly to is­sue a state­ment warn­ing against re­ly­ing on pri­or FTC work in the area, ar­gu­ing that it no longer is re­flec­tive of the cur­rent mar­ket. The com­mis­sion­ers said the state­ment re­sponds to the PBM in­dus­try’s re­liance on out­dat­ed ma­te­ri­als op­pos­ing manda­to­ry trans­paren­cy and dis­clo­sure re­quire­ments.

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