A brand new analysis from the American Medical Affiliation (AMA) provides to the rising proof detailing the dearth of competitors and excessive vertical integration within the pharmacy profit supervisor market.
The paper is predicated on 2022 and 2023 information on prescription drug plan enrollees and comes shortly after the Federal Commerce Fee and the U.S. Home Committee on Oversight and Accountability launched comparable reviews on PBMs.
The AMA discovered that OptumRx was the biggest PBM within the U.S. in 2023 with a 22.2% share within the rebate negotiation market, adopted by CVS Caremark with an 18.9% market share, Categorical Scripts with a 15.5% market share and Prime Therapeutics with a ten.6% market share. Collectively, these 4 PBMs had a 67% share of the nationwide PBM market in 2023.
There was additionally critical vertical integration of insurers with PBMs in 2023, with 77% of economic and Half D enrollees in a prescription drug plan the place the insurer and PBM have been vertically built-in, in response to the AMA. When simply Half D prescription drug plan lives, 88% have been in a plan the place there was vertical integration, in comparison with 71% in industrial.
As well as, 9 of the ten largest PBMs share possession with well being insurers. This consists of OptumRx (owned by UnitedHealth Group), CVS Caremark (owned by CVS Well being) and Categorical Scripts (owned by Cigna).
UnitedHealth Group was the biggest prescription drug plan insurer within the industrial market and the Medicare Benefit market, with a 13.2% share and 29.4% share, respectively. CVS Well being, in the meantime, was the biggest prescription drug plan insurer within the standalone market with a 27.2% share, in response to the AMA.
“As PBMs more and more act in their very own self-interest with out transparency or accountability, drug costs rise and sufferers face well being dangers from value prohibitive drug therapies,” mentioned AMA President Bobby Mukkamala, M.D., in a press release. “The AMA’s evaluation is meant to supply perception to assist policymakers perceive the anticompetitive situations within the PBM market that may end up in hurt to sufferers.”
Mukkamala added that the AMA helps initiatives geared toward growing transparency and holding pharmacy profit managers accountable.
On the federal degree, a number of bipartisan payments have been launched focusing on PBMs. This consists of the PBM Reform Act introduced by Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-Georgia) in July, which seeks to ban unfold pricing in Medicaid. There may be additionally the Sufferers Earlier than Monopolies Act, introduced in December by Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and Josh Hawley (R-Missouri), which might ban PBMs from proudly owning pharmacies.
Picture: z_wei, Getty Photographs
