An investigation by the Federal Trade Commission into pharmaceutical benefit managers and group purchasing organizations continues to expand.
On Thursday, the FTC issued a mandatory order against Emisar Pharma Services requiring it to provide information about its business practices. The GPO negotiates discounts with drug manufacturers on behalf of UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx subsidiary. The company has 90 days to provide documents.
The commission began investigating how PBMs like OptumRx, CVS Health’s CVS Caremark and Cigna’s Express Scripts operate a year ago and expanded it last month to include affiliated GPOs like Zinc Health Services and Ascent Health Services.
Together, OptumRx, CVS Caremark, and Express Scripts control about 80% of the PBM market.
The PBM industry is also under scrutiny on Capitol Hill. A Senate committee introduced legislation last month that would ban practices like arbitrage pricing, while a House panel passed a bill imposing new transparency requirements on companies. In addition, the House Oversight and Accountability Committee is conducting a parallel investigation into PBM.
