PBMs in the Sen­ate hot seat as bi­par­ti­san trans­paren­cy mea­sures may take root

Phar­ma­cy ben­e­fit man­agers ⁠— the much-ma­ligned mid­dle­men of the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal sup­ply chain ⁠— took the brunt of ques­tion­ing from sen­a­tors on both sides of the aisle on Thurs­day at a com­merce com­mit­tee hear­ing.

Echo­ing re­cent and sim­i­lar ques­tions from the FTC, front and cen­ter at the Sen­ate hear­ing were the an­ti-com­pet­i­tive prac­tices of PBMs, like ar­ti­fi­cial­ly in­flat­ing the list prices of cer­tain drugs while col­lect­ing a grow­ing por­tion of re­bates, and in­creas­ing out-of-pock­et costs for con­sumers along the way.

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