HEALTH

Moderate Drinking Raises Health Risks While Offering Few Benefits

 Axios - The three biggest pharmacy benefit managers made more than $7.3 billion over five years marking up the prices of specialty generic drugs for cancer, HIV and other conditions, the Federal Trade Commission charged on Tuesday. It's the second time the FTC has singled out CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and OptumRx for driving up drug costs. The report could provide fodder if President-elect Trump opts to make good on vows to crack down on pharmacy middlemen.

•  The PBMs marked up prices for specialty generic drugs by hundreds and sometimes thousands of percent over their estimated acquisition costs from 2017 and 2022, per the FTC report.

The report builds off earlier findings the FTC released in July that found that the three major PBMs garnered nearly $1.6 billion in extra revenue on just two cancer drugs in less than three years by steering business to affiliated pharmacies. MORE