US PBMs to save $1,300B on Rx drugs by 2017

US pharmacy benefit managers' trade association, the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, has published the findings of a study which claims that the sector will save Medicare and commercial insurers more than $1,300.0 billion in prescription drug costs in the period 2008-2017. The research was carried out on its behalf by management consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers.

In the case of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit (Marketletters passim), the PwC report calculated that PBMs would save $693.0 billion over the decade ending 2017, with $443.0 billion of the total accounted for in the first year alone.

However, these estimates are threatened by well-intentioned action by the US Congress to force public disclosure of PBM contract terms, which would, PwC argues, have the opposite effect of that envisaged by lawmakers: to raise prescription drug prices. For the combined Medicare and private sector, PwC found that drug prices would rise 4.1%, or about $127.0 billion over the decade to 2017, with the Part D program accounting for over half of the total, or $67.0 billion.