Summary In October 2017, CVS Caremark (CVS) finally decided to exclude from its 2018 drug formulary the new-to-market Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) drug Mavyret despite it being list priced aggressively by its manufacturer AbbVie at an estimated 72% below the list price of Gilead Sciences’ incumbent HCV drug Harvoni. We estimate that Gilead Sciences had …
Continue reading “Was CVS’s Formulary Exclusion of Mavyret a Violation of Antitrust Laws?”
Summary We present data supplied by the drug company Merck that discredits a study sponsored by the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) trade association showing no correlation between PBM rebate rates and brand drug price inflation. Introduction The management of the prescription (Rx) drug benefit portion of health care plans has become the domain of contracted …
Continue reading “Merck Data Discredits PBM-Sponsored Study of Brand Drug Price Inflation”
Summary: We start with a review of the history of the opaque pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reseller business model. We present our prior estimates of the distribution of PBM gross profits over the past decade showing that they have become dependent today on retained rebates from specialty drugs. Next, we present numbers showing how PBMs …
Continue reading “Blame Pharmacy Benefit Managers (Not Pharma) For Driving Drug Price Inflation”
We present the case that there has been three distinct phases of the pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) business model over the past 15 years. Each phase has been demarcated by a major shift in the dominant source of gross profits. These radical shifts in the primary source of gross profits in such a short period …
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