You’re going to start hearing more about PBMs soon, and it may sound different than you’re used to.
Odds are, if you’ve heard something about pharmacy benefit managers in recent years, it wasn’t good. Driving up costs, getting in the way of patient care, pocketing savings. All sounds terrible.
It’s also intended to mislead you. That’s because for the last seven years, you were likely hearing about PBMs from people who have a financial interest in defaming them – the large drug manufacturers.
I’m new to the PBM industry myself, but I’ve seen the goofy ads for years. If you’re in Washington, you’ve seen them too: PBMs presented as serving no purposes other than to drive up costs and block access to drugs. Over and over, the ads run. Millions and millions spent.
As an outside politics observer, I long tipped my cap at the drug industry’s ability to wholesale create a new reality. I guess this is what you can do when you have the time and almost unlimited resources.
That study you saw on PBMs? Probably Pharma-funded. That unexpected group that took up the cause of PBM reform? Likely a recipient of Big Pharma grants.
Of course, we should all understand this for what it is – a way to divert attention away from drugmakers and onto the ones who haggle with them in the real world to bring down prices – PBMs.
This should be self-evident, but if we’re being honest, it was also successful.
On its face, the notion employers would hire companies to make drugs more expensive is ludicrous. But it worked. The word rebate – which is just a discount – has somehow been redefined as a cost. It worked.
And, look, we made for an easy mark. Very few people know what a PBM is or how it works, and as an industry, we weren’t prepared for the attack. So they could define us.
Big Pharma had the playing field to themselves, and they have quite successfully branded PBMs as bad. The result, they won and got their policies enacted earlier this year in the Consolidated Appropriations Act. PBM reform is now law.
Okay, fine, so what now?
We don’t need anyone’s pity. They have every right to play that game. But shame on us if we let it continue.
That brings us to the news of this week. The PBM industry is taking a major step toward recapturing its own identity. On Monday, PCMA launched a large-scale advertising campaign to communicate the value of PBMs for American families, patients, and employers.
In the coming days, weeks, and months, the policymaker community will see a new commitment from PCMA to tell its own story. Our ads are simple, people-focused, and educational. They emphasize two foundational roles played by PBMs: lowering drug prices and promoting patient safety.
The campaign is the start of a long-term investment in communicating our value. We pledge to always be on, telling our story.
No one is going to help you if you don’t help yourself. So we’re going to start showing up.
A couple weeks into the job, new PCMA president and CEO Dave Marin made an appearance at a February House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing, where he was blunt: “We have not done a good enough job articulating PBMs’ value to you. We have not been the partner you need. We are going to change that.”
A big part of that change starts this week. Check out the new ad here, and stay tuned – much more is to come.