Governor signs legislation banning PBMs from simultaneously owning pharmacies and other notes from around the interweb:

• Arkansas governor signs legislation banning PBMs from simultaneously owning pharmacies. Arkansas lawmakers in the Senate on Wednesday passed a bill that would stop pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) from owning pharmacies and selling drugs retail in the state. The bill now heads to the governor’s desk for her signature. PBMs are the middlemen who negotiate with insurance companies, manufacturers, and pharmacies to set drug prices. Where the controversy comes in is when PBMs also own their own pharmacies, creating what many believe is a conflict of interest. CVS officials said a new law restricting Pharmacy Benefit Managers from owning pharmacies will result in the closure of more than 20 Arkansas pharmacies.

• Overcoming Biosimilar Utilization Barriers. “The opportunities with all of these biosimilars are that they have the ability to improve patient access, new starts, persistence and adherence,” said panelist Alex Mersch, PharmD, an assistant director of ambulatory specialty programs at University of Iowa Health Care, in Iowa City. “For many organizations, especially if we look at it from the inpatient side, there’s a lot of opportunity to decrease drug costs by [replacing the reference product with] the biosimilar.”

• The Rise in Direct-to-Consumer Advertising of Prescription Drugs. From the marketing of drugs with low-added benefit to manufacturers’ inability to follow FDA guidelines, direct-to-consumer advertising for prescription drugs has increased in the US and is beginning to raise alarms. “Under FDA guidelines, pharmaceutical companies are supposed to provide a balanced view of drugs in advertising in terms of their risks and benefits,” said Jenny Markell, BA, PhD Candidate of Health and Public Policy at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “They’re supposed to avoid any misleading information. It’s illegal, for example, to overstate a drug’s benefits, misrepresent data from studies, or make claims that are not supported by adequate evidence.” However, even after FDA attempts of holding manufacturers accountable, drug companies continue to skew the country’s perceptions of specific prescription drugs.

• ERISA Preemption: Impact on State PBM Laws. Pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) play a role in the US healthcare system by negotiating drug prices and formulary placements on behalf of insurers and employer sponsored health plans. Recently, there have been concerns about certain PBM business practices, including drug pricing transparency and reimbursement rates. This has prompted numerous states to enact laws regulating PBMs. A key legal challenge to these state laws is whether ERISA preempts these laws. ERISA is a federal law that sets national standards for employer-sponsored health plans. One of its most important provisions is preemption, meaning that ERISA overrides state laws that attempt to regulate employer health plans directly.

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