Lawmakers: Increase Competition In The Prescription Drug Market – Don’t Constrain It.

S. 127, the “Pharmacy Benefit Manager Transparency Act of 2023” fundamentally misconstrues the role of pharmacy benefit companies, who are working every day to secure savings, enable better health outcomes, and support access to quality prescription drug coverage for patients, saving an average of $1,040 per person per year.

THE FACTS:

Pharmacy benefit companies help patients, taxpayers, and the health care system by:

Passing nearly all the savings, or rebates, negotiated from drug manufacturers directly to the health plans and employers who hire them – helping save patients, taxpayers, and the health care system $148 billion annually

Providing employers with a wide range of choices for quality prescription drug coverage, which saves employers $625 per person per year on prescription drug costs

Enabling better health outcomes for patients by preventing drug interactions, reducing medication errors. and offering benefit services like home delivery and health literacy programs

THE CHALLENGE:

Big drug companies drive high prices and block competition in the drug market.

Big drug companies repeatedly and arbitrarily increase prices on existing medications, with no correlation between what big drug companies charge for drugs and their effectiveness for patients.

The median annual price among drugs approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2022 exceeded $200,000.

In addition, big drug companies block affordable alternatives – such as generics and biosimilars – from entering the prescription drug marketplace.

Patent thickets on five of the ten top-selling drugs in the U.S. resulted in more than $500 billion in additional sales. Patent abuse blocking biosimilars from the market alone will cost patients an estimated $30 billion over the next decade — on top of a $5 billion heightened price tag from lost biosimilar competition between 2015 to 2020.

For the top ten best-selling drugs in the U.S., there are on average 74 granted patents, preventing generics and biosimilars from entering the market.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Misguided policies targeting pharmacy benefits will only raise costs for patients and further consolidate pricing power in the hands of big drug companies.

WHAT WE CAN DO ABOUT IT:

Competition is the best way to lower prescription drug costs. Congress and the FTC should focus on solutions to increase, rather than constrain, competition in the prescription drug market as the best way to drive down prescription drug costs, especially by ending big drug companies’ abuse of the patent system. 

We’re calling on lawmakers to say NO to S. 127 – and say YES to protecting more savings, better health outcomes, and more coverage for patients.