03 Jan The Washington Post: Pharma, under attack for drug prices, started an industry war
“It’s not easy to get Americans mad at a behind-the-scenes industry they’ve barely even heard of, but pharmaceutical companies have spent most of this year trying.
“Who decides what you pay for your medicines? Not who you might think,” a concerned woman’s voice says in a radio spot airing in the District last month. “More than one-third of the list price of a medicine is rebated back to middlemen, like insurers and pharmacy benefit managers.”
With national and state advertising campaigns, white papers and cartoon infographics, the powerful and well-funded drug-industry lobby spent 2017 working to redirect public anger about drug prices to pharmacy benefits managers (or PBMs): links in the supply chain that sits invisibly between the patient and the drugmaker — in the process bringing a long-simmering feud between two big health-industry players into the open.”
