Final week, the Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) revealed a report titled “Pharmacy Profit Managers: The Highly effective Middlemen Inflating Drug Prices and Squeezing Major Road Pharmacies.” Whereas I received’t get into an evaluation of the precise arguments the FTC made, the report does include some attention-grabbing statistics and charts about pharmacy profit managers (PBMs). Beneath are some highlights.

First, PBMs do rather more than simply design formularies. Right this moment, they’re extremely built-in entities, with many giant PBMs owned straight by well being insurers.

The scale of PBMs has elevated because of a sequence of consolidations over the previous 25 years.

The market share of the highest 3 PBMs (CVS Caremark, Specific Scripts (ESI) and OptumRx) elevated from 70% to 79% of the PBM market.

The share of specialised mail order pharmacies in PBM turnover is growing in comparison with different channels.

In truth, PBM dad or mum firm revenues accounted for 22% of all U.S. nationwide healthcare spending in 2023.

You possibly can learn the complete report right here.