The National Community Pharmacists Association (NCPA) slammed pharmacy benefit managers for pursuing profit over client interests after a report from AARP found retail prices of brand-name drugs skyrocketed in 2009.
AARP's analysis of prescription drug retail price trends found while manufacturer prices for widely used brand-name drugs increased 9.3 percent in 2009, retail prices for the same drugs climbed nearly as quickly at 8.3 percent, and by 41.5 percent over the past five years – rates well in excess of inflation.
All but six of the 217 brand name prescription drugs studied by AARP had retail price increases exceeding general inflation last year. Each of the top 25-selling brand-name drugs had price increases, with most jumping more than five percent.
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"This report should serve as a wake-up call to both patients and health plan sponsors relying on major pharmacy benefit managers to administer their drug benefits," Joseph H. Harmison, PD, president of the NCPA said in a released statement. "Community pharmacists regularly work with patients to stretch their health care dollars, such as by promoting the use of cost-saving generic drugs. And local pharmacists know all too well the frustration patients have with drug costs set by factors well outside the pharmacist's control, such as brand name manufacturers and PBMs."
Harmison criticized PBMs for transforming from "simple claims administrators into unregulated, billion-dollar middlemen whose profit motivations routinely conflict with clients' interests. AARP's analysis calls into serious question what patients and health plans are getting in return for billions of dollars spent on pharmacy benefit management."
AARP claims it's been attacked before by the brand-name drug industry for analyzing manufacturer list prices without reflecting rebates and discounts. NCPA argues these rebates have "predictable costs, simply budgeted into the overall, rising cost of brand name drugs. The pursuit of more rebate revenue has been known to lead PBMs to switch patients from generic drugs to pricier name brands. In addition, among the drugs experiencing the greatest price inflation are so-called specialty drugs that PBMs often require to be dispensed solely through their own mail order pharmacies.
"AARP's findings, combined with windfall PBM profits, make it clear why PBMs so strongly resist greater transparency requirements, such as assuming a fiduciary duty to put clients' interests above their own."
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