PCMA Response to FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb's Remarks on Biosimilars

WASHINGTON, March 7, 2018 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Pharmaceutical Care Management Association (PCMA) released the following response to this morning's remarks by Food and Drug Administration (FDA) Commissioner Scott Gottlieb:

"In an era of rising drug prices, employers, insurers and other payers have an obligation to negotiate the lowest rates available, whether for a biologic or biosimilar product.

It's unfair to blame payers – who pay 2/3 the cost of drug benefits – for seeking the lowest costs in a marketplace where they have no control over the prices drugmakers set, how quickly FDA approves biosimilars, or when FDA will finalize workable interchangeability guidelines to increase uptake of biosimilars.

Likewise payers – not the pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) they hire to negotiate discounts – determine how rebates and other savings are allocated to reduce premiums, out-of-pocket costs and other expenses. Increasingly, large commercial payers are requiring 100% of such rebates to be passed through to them directly."

PCMA is the national association representing America's pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). PBMs administer prescription drug plans for more than 266 million Americans who have health insurance from a variety of sponsors including: commercial health plans, self-insured employer plans, union plans, Medicare Part D plans, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program (FEHBP), state government employee plans, Medicaid plans, and others.

SOURCE Pharmaceutical Care Management Association