Chrissy Buteas, President and CEO of the HealthCare Institute of New Jersey (HINJ), has responded to a recent report by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). The FTC's second report highlighted significant markups charged by PBMs for medicines treating serious conditions such as cancer, multiple sclerosis, HIV, pulmonary hypertension, and other critical specialty generic drugs.
"HINJ applauds the FTC’s continued diligence in exposing these unethical PBM practices that substantially increase the cost of medicines for patients and employers," Buteas stated. She criticized PBMs for forcing patients to pay more for essential medications to boost their profits. According to the report, major PBMs like CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and OptumRx bought drugs at low costs but marked them up significantly before selling them at higher rates. This practice reportedly generated $7.3 billion in increased revenue for PBMs from 2017 to 2022.
Buteas further commented on the impact of these practices: "While pharmaceutical companies spend billions of dollars finding new treatments and cures for patients, these PBM middlemen buy those medicines at low rates and then artificially inflate the price for patients." She emphasized HINJ's commitment to working with lawmakers to address what she described as an "unethical, abusive system" with the goal of saving patients money at pharmacies. Buteas expressed gratitude towards the FTC for its focus on this issue.
