On Tuesday, Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan participated in a roundtable of community pharmacists co-hosted by NCPA. Attendees discussed issues such as patient harms due to formulary restrictions, like increased costs, patient steering and other limits to access; under-reimbursement; contracts that are neither reasonable nor relevant; the critical need to address anticompetitive PBM behaviors as swiftly and thoroughly as possible; and how vertical integration has led to perverse incentives for PBMs to exploit their market power. A takeaway from the discussion is that Khan—a keynote speaker at NCPA’s Annual Convention in 2022—remains committed to our issues and appears to also be frustrated with how long it has taken to do something for our industry. While emphasizing that time is of the essence, NCPA General Counsel Matthew Seiler says that we’re grateful for Khan’s dedication to understanding the pressures affecting community pharmacy. “It’s clear that the chair understands the myriad bad behaviors of the PBMs that result from the structural incentives that enable them to favor those bad behaviors over other stakeholders within pharmacy,” he adds. “It is sad that these large Fortune 15 companies choose to exploit stakeholders, like community pharmacies and the patients they serve, rather than see the value that each of them brings if treated fairly.”
