APhA praises FTC intent to challenge anticompetitive behaviors — calls for fair and equitable competition to ensure patient access

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The American Pharmacists Association (APhA) hailed the Federal Trade Commission’s (FTC) statement restoring the agency’s policy of rigorously enforcing the federal ban on unfair methods of competition and intent “to exercise its full statutory authority against companies that use unfair tactics to gain an advantage instead of competing on the merits.”

“The heavily consolidated PBM marketplace has created an unequal playing field in the marketplace that disadvantages patients, pharmacists, and communities,” stated Ilisa BG Bernstein, PharmD, JD, FAPhA, interim CEO and executive vice president of APhA. “We look forward to working with the FTC to restore equity and promote a more consumer-friendly marketplace by stopping PBMs’ anticompetitive business practices that reduce patients’ access to medicines and services at their local pharmacies, including independent, chain, or those associated with health systems. By inflating the costs of prescriptions, harvesting precious resources meant to staff pharmacies appropriately, forcing patients to use pharmacies they didn’t choose, and putting pharmacies out of business, they often are leaving ‘pharmacy deserts’ in minority and underserved communities—where the neighborhood pharmacy may be the only health care provider for miles,” Bernstein concluded.

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