PBMs: The Middlemen Who Drive up Drug Costs

Ensuring effective competition in healthcare markets is a critical priority for antitrust enforcers.  Traditionally enforcement has focused on manufacturers and providers but far too little attention has been given to intermediaries such as Pharmacy Benefit Managers (“PBMs”).  A lack of attention and enforcement has permitted a highly concentrated PBM market to evolve in which PBMs prevent transparency and exploit conflicts of interest to raise costs and deny necessary low-cos