PBMs and Pharma Leaders Point Fingers During US Senate HELP Committee

At yesterday’s US Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee hearing, representatives from pharma and the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) industry are blaming one another for high prescription drug prices. While PBMs argue that drugmakers could lower list prices on their own, pharma reps argue that PBMs’ practices drive drug prices up.

According to Paige Minemyer, “The committee members pushed companies at both sides of the debate on some of the more controversial aspects of their business. Several pressed the PBM executives on their position in huge, vertically integrated organizations. CVS owns its Caremark PBM as well as a huge retail pharmacy segment and the health plan Aetna. OptumRx is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group alongside insurance giant UnitedHealthcare and the growing provider business Optum Health. Express Scripts is a subsidiary of Cigna, as is MDLive, a telehealth provider.”

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(Source: Fierce Healthcare, May 10^th, 2023)