U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) (Photo by Michael Brochstein/Sipa USA via AP Images)

Grass­ley to FTC: In­ves­ti­gate the role of PBMs on out-of-pock­et costs

Fol­low­ing the Fed­er­al Trade Com­mis­sion’s de­ci­sion last month to not in­ves­ti­gate phar­ma mid­dle­men, or phar­ma­cy ben­e­fit man­agers, Iowa Re­pub­li­can Sen. Chuck Grass­ley sent a let­ter last week to FTC chair Lina Khan, urg­ing the com­mis­sion to find com­mon ground and close­ly ex­am­ine how the PBM in­dus­try af­fects pa­tients’ out-of-pock­et ex­pens­es.

The call from Grass­ley comes as Khan urged her fel­low com­mis­sion­ers to ad­vance a “long over­due” in­quiry in­to PBMs, as the com­mis­sion has “a re­al moral im­per­a­tive to act.” PBMs have long been cri­tiqued as dri­ving up pa­tients’ ex­pens­es at the phar­ma­cy counter, and for us­ing tac­tics to dri­ve peo­ple away from com­mu­ni­ty phar­ma­cies to their chain phar­ma­cies.

Endpoints News

Unlock this article instantly by becoming a free subscriber.

You’ll get access to free articles each month, plus you can customize what newsletters get delivered to your inbox each week, including breaking news.