By Ahmed Aboulenein and Amina Niasse
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The nation’s three largest pharmacy profit managers have considerably marked up the costs of sure medicines, together with for coronary heart illness, most cancers and HIV, at their affiliated pharmacies, the U.S. Federal Commerce Fee mentioned on Tuesday.
From 2017 to 2022, the businesses — UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:)’s Optum, CVS Well being (NYSE:)’s CVS Caremark and Cigna (NYSE:)’s Specific Scripts — marked up costs at their affiliated pharmacies by a whole bunch or 1000’s of p.c, netting them $7.3 billion in income in extra of the acquisition prices of the medication, the FTC mentioned in its second report on the trade.
Pharmacy profit managers, or PBMs, act as middlemen between drug firms and shoppers. They negotiate quantity reductions and charges with drug producers on behalf of employers and well being plans, create lists of medicines which might be lined by insurance coverage, and reimburse pharmacies for prescriptions.
The FTC sued the three PBMs in September, accusing them of steering diabetes sufferers towards greater priced insulin merchandise as a way to reap tens of millions of {dollars} in rebates from drugmakers. The businesses say the go well with is baseless and defend their practices.
