NCPA Asks Trump Administration to Address Role of Pharmacy Benefit Managers in Drug Pricing

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (January 12, 2017)—The National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) has written a letter to President-elect Donald J. Trump urging his Administration to examine the role pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) play in escalating prescription drug prices. NCPA’s letter, sent January 9, responds to the President-elect’s comments on this issue, reinforced yesterday at a news conference.

NCPA’s letter describes how these drug middlemen have evolved, growing “over the past few decades from prescription processing companies into enormous corporations that hold the key to rising prescription drug costs and operate in a virtual black box…These companies have morphed into little-regulated entities that exploit their strategic position at the middle of nearly all drug transactions in the U.S., to extract profits from the upstream and downstream participants in the drug supply chain while providing questionable value to the ultimate consumer.”

NCPA urges the Trump Administration to “closely scrutinize PBM corporations and demand much greater transparency from these entities. Cleaning up the role of PBMs is instrumental to addressing prescription drug prices.”

In addition, NCPA outlined how independent community pharmacies can help reduce spending while improving health outcomes. As the letter states NCPA has, “Studied prescription payment models for decades and believe we can be of assistance to your Administration in its quest to get the best deal and highest level of care for our country…We would like to volunteer our services to assist your Administration to achieve these objectives.”

Visit ncpanet.org for more information.