FTC Downplaying Previous Concerns With Mandatory PBM Transparency

The Federal Trade Commission doesn’t want to hinder state and federal government efforts to reform pharmacy benefit managers as it continues its investigation of possible anti-competitive business practices in the industry.

With that in mind, the commission unanimously adopted a position statement July 20 that “cautions against reliance on certain of its prior advocacy statements and reports relating to the pharmacy benefit manager market.”

The three commissioners on the panel are Democratic appointees. Whether the vote would have been any different with a Republican presence on the commission is unclear, however. The FTC agreed last year to launch its broad investigation into the PBM industry with the support of two Republican commissioners.

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Cathy Kelly

Cathy Kelly

Cathy is a senior writer with Pink Sheet and has covered U.S. regulation and reimbursement policy for the biopharma industry since 2004, starting with the establishment of the Medicare Part D program. Since then, she has written extensively about developments in all major sectors of the U.S. insurance market (Medicare, Medicaid and commercial plans). She has covered key legislation affecting biopharma, including the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act which created Part D, health care reform under President Obama, and the Inflation Reduction Act. She has closely followed the increasing influence of pharmacy benefit managers and their use of formulary negotiations and rebates to control pricing. Cathy also has covered developments in health technology assessments and has monitored industry progress on novel drug contracting that reflects value-based pricing.

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