SCPC Praises FTC for Report Highlighting Egregious PBM Abuses; Encourages Congress and New Administration to Make PBM Reform an Immediate Priority in 2025

DATE: January 15, 2025

SCPC, the leading voice for the nation’s long-term care (LTC) pharmacy community, commends the FTC for once again shining a light on the abusive practices of the big PBMs that continue to rake in massive profits while patients, pharmacies, employers and taxpayers foot the bill for ever-increasing drug prices. 

The latest FTC interim report clearly illustrates how PBMs are gaming a broken drug pricing and reimbursement system to generate billions of dollars in profit through extreme price mark ups on life-saving medications. Allowing PBMs to mark up the prices of many specialty drugs by more than 1,000 percent of their own costs is simply absurd and should serve as an immediate wakeup call for lawmakers and officials at all levels of government to act. 

SCPC has been sounding the alarm for years on these egregious PBM abuses and the uniquely devastating impacts they have on LTC pharmacies and long-term care patients. But the situation is only getting worse because of new policies, including the IRA’s mandated Medicare drug price negotiations, that will only exacerbate the impacts of the broken, PBM-driven Part D reimbursement model under which LTC pharmacies are forced to operate.

We implore Congress, the Trump Administration, and future FTC leadership to continue this fight and make meaningful PBM an immediate priority in 2025. Left unchecked, PBMs will continue to dictate when, where, how and what costs Americans can access their medications while imposing their will on LTC pharmacies through unfair and harmful contracts that will one day force many of them out of business. 

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