David Joyner, a CVS Executive for a long time, speaks during an audience of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions of the Senate in Washington, DC, on May 10, 2023.
To the drago | Bloomberg | Getty images
CVS health The CEO, David Joyner, defended the controversial intermediaries of Pharmacy on Wednesday as the Caremark unit of his company, who are widely accused of inflating the prices of prescription medications, and instead accused the manufacturers of “monopolistic tendencies “That they keep the costs of medicines in the United States.
Joyner, who entered the role in October, spent a large part of his opening comments about the company's fourth -quarter's earning calls discussing the so -called pharmacy benefits managers, or PBM. It was atypical that the quarterly call of CVS began that way, but it comes at a time when legislators on both sides of the hall and President Donald Trump have indicated interest in taking energetic measures against PBM.
CVS owns Caremark, one of the three largest PBMs in the country that collectively manages approximately 80% of the recipes in the USA.
These intermediaries negotiate reimbursements with medication manufacturers in the name of insurers, create lists of medicines known as forms covered by insurance and reimburse pharmacies for prescriptions. But legislators and medicines manufacturers argue that PBMs take too much plans for those who negotiate reimbursements, low pharmacies and cannot transmit savings of those discounts to patients.
Joyner acknowledged that the growing costs of medical care in the United States are pressing patients, employers and federal government. It blamed factors such as greater use of patient services, the increase in the costs of the medical care provider, labor shortages and “dramatic price increases” for brand medications.
But he said that PBMs such as Caremark are “one of the most powerful forces that help compensate for the growing costs of medical care,” claiming that they are the only part of the medication supply chain focused only on reducing costs.
“Our work is a critical counterweight for the monopolistic trends of drug manufacturers,” said Joyner. “That is why PBMs are needed and why manufacturers fight so hard to limit our abilities.”
He claimed that brand manufacturers added $ 21 billion in annual expenses of gross drugs in the first three weeks of January through their price increases, but did not quote where the figure is.
Joyner added that multiple economists have estimated that PBMs generate a net value for the US medical care system, more than $ 100 billion a year.
“No one has demonstrated more success than PBMs to reduce medicines prices,” he said.
However, the pharmaceutical industry and legislators argue that PBMs and insurers embols these reimbursement savings and negotiated discounts instead of passing them to patients.
In a statement on Wednesday, PHRMA, the largest lobbying group in the country for the pharmaceutical industry, said PBMs are “under intense and well deserved scrutiny.”
“Bipartisan state prosecutors, policy formulators in Congress and State legislatures and FTC are investigating these medical care conglomerates,” said a PHRMA spokesman. “Everyone has reached the same conclusion: PBMs are increasing costs and reducing access to the expense of patients, employers and our medical care system.”
