In case you missed it, a new report from health policy researcher Alex Brill, founder and CEO of Matrix Global Advisors and former policy director and chief economist for the U.S. House Committee on Ways and Means, “Rebates and Drug Price Increases: An Analysis,” found that prescription drugs with the largest list price increases do not have rebates. The findings underscore that despite Big Pharma’s otherwise, there is actually no correlation between the two.

Key findings from the report include:

• Nine out of ten prescription drugs with the highest price increases since 2018 DO NOT have rebates.
• Among the top 29 drugs studied between 2018 and 2023, those with no rebates saw price increases as high as 413 percent – with an average price hike of 93 percent.
• Among the top drugs with rebates, price increases were much lower – 44 percent on average.
• To combat high and rising prescription drug prices, Congress should focus on policies that promote drug competition.

Another analysis using Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) data of the top 250 brand-name drugs in Medicare Part D by total spending in 2020 confirmed that price increases from big drug companies are unrelated to rebates.

Key findings in this analysis include:

• Increasing list prices are not correlated with changes in prescription drug rebates.
• There is no consistent pattern to the changes in rebates on brand prescription drugs; some increased while others decreased.
• There are prominent cases of list price increases on brand drugs where rebates stayed the same or declined.

Despite what Big Pharma wants you to believe, rebates result in significant savings for patients. 99.6percent of rebates are passed directly to Medicare Part D plans and 91 percent to other health plan sponsors, like employers and unions, who use those savings to help patients, including by lowering premiums, reducing cost-sharing at the pharmacy counter or providing more comprehensive benefit offerings.

Proposals that target rebates, including banning performance-based incentives for pharmacy benefit companies successfully securing price concessions from drug companies, do nothing to lower costs and play directly into Big Pharma’s agenda to avoid accountability. Misguided legislation pushes policies that will undermine the only real check on their otherwise limitless pricing power. In fact, so-called “delinking” policies would actually help boost Big Pharma’s profits by $32 billion annually in the Medicare Part D and commercial health insurance markets.

Lawmakers should take a look at the facts and numerous analyses that find pharmacy benefit companies and the rebates they secure actually result in more savings for patients and families and reject Big Pharma’s blame game to target others in the supply chain, all so they can boost their own bottom line.

See the new MGA report HERE.

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See more on how rebates are uncorrelated to high list prices HERE.

Learn how most prescriptions actually do not have rebates HERE.

Read about the costly implications of “delinking” legislation HERE.

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PCMA is the national association representing America’s pharmacy benefit companies. Pharmacy benefit companies are working every day to secure savings, enable better health outcomes, and support access to quality prescription drug coverage for more than 275 million patients. Learn more at www.pcmanet.org