WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley
(R-Iowa), ranking member of the Judiciary Committee and a leading advocate on
the Finance Committee for
lowering prescription drug costs and holding pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)
accountable, was joined by Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) and five of their
colleagues in urging the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to complete its PBM
investigation in a timely manner. The renewed push comes after the FTC failed
to commit to a timeline for its investigation during a recent
oversight hearing on antitrust enforcement. The commission
announced the probe in June following requests from Grassley.
In a
bipartisan letter to FTC Chairwoman Lina Khan, Grassley and Cantwell were joined by
Sens. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.), James Lankford (R-Okla.), Marsha Blackburn
(R-Tenn.), Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) and Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) in arguing that
Americans cannot afford a delay, since PBMs’ potential anticompetitive behavior
could be increasing the cost of medicine for consumers.
“As you know, PBMs operate with little to
no transparency, making it very difficult if not impossible to understand the
flow of money in the prescription drug marketplace and how PBMs determine the
prices for prescription drugs. Recent consolidations between PBMs, insurance
providers, and other health care entities have resulted in vertical integration
whereby a small number of companies now manage the vast majority of
prescription drug benefits,” the
senators wrote.
The senators discuss their support for
the
Prescription
Pricing for the People Act
– a bipartisan measure led by Grassley and Cantwell – that would require the
FTC to investigate PBMs for potential market manipulation tactics and other
anti-competitive practices and provide a report to Congress within one year.
The bill was
unanimously approved by the Judiciary Committee last year.
“There is widespread bipartisan support
for examining PBMs and looking into whether they are causing Americans to pay
higher prices for prescription drugs. This is why we support the FTC’s decision
to conduct a PBM study. We hear stories about rising drug costs all the time. A
timely study into the business practices of these intermediaries would provide
transparency, insight about possible competitive harms, and inform potential
legislative action. With the FTC’s action on June 7, 2022, there is widespread
support for the study and interest to review its findings in a timely manner.
To ensure the 6(b) study’s usefulness, we urge the FTC to issue the report
within one year of its issuance,” the
senators concluded.
Full text of the letter is available
HERE.
The FTC announced its investigation in
June, after Grassley had
pressed
the commission to review the role of PBMs in prescription drug prices,
specifically insulin, in May. Grassley also
requested FTC assessments in August 2018. As chairman of the Senate
Finance Committee, Grassley and then-Ranking Member Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) called
five PBM executives to testify before the committee in 2019.
Grassley also recently introduced the
Pharmacy
Benefit Manager Transparency Act alongside Cantwell, which would direct the FTC to increase
drug-pricing transparency and hold PBMs accountable for unfair and deceptive
practices. This measure
passed the Commerce Committee in June. The senator has also spent years
pushing for passage of his Prescription
Drug Pricing Reduction Act, a bipartisan bill he authored with Wyden and
shepherded through the Finance Committee in 2019. That legislation would cap
year-over-year price increases, reform Medicare Part D and save both seniors
and taxpayers billions of dollars.
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