FTC Accuses Pharma ‘Middlemen’ of Marking Up Cancer, HIV Drugs

While the middlemen and their affiliates raked in revenue, patients ended up paying more for drugs, the agency said.

A customer enters a CVS store in Los Angeles on Oct. 31, 2023. Mario Tama/Getty Images

Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) pushed up the cost of some prescription drugs by up to 1,000 percent, according to a recent report from the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

The report focused on PBMs’ control over specialty generic drugs. The PBMs “marked up numerous specialty generic drugs dispensed at their affiliated pharmacies by thousands of percent, and many others by hundreds of percent,” said a Jan. 14 statement from the agency.