WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) led a group of 22 senators, including U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT), in demanding that pharmaceutical manufacturers stop withholding medications discounted under the 340B Drug Pricing Program from qualified providers that use contract pharmacies – locking out low-income patients from accessing lifesaving drugs and care.
In a letter to the drug industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), the senators pointed to multiple retaliatory, burdensome, and likely unlawful efforts by its member drug companies to prevent 340B-covered providers from receiving discounted drugs, including denials to providers using contract pharmacies and excessive claims data requests.
“By improperly limiting access to 340B drugs, manufacturers will sever a lifeline to treatment for those who are overwhelmingly underserved, low-income, and vulnerable,” the senators wrote in the letter to PhRMA President and CEO Stephen Ubl. “It is troubling that during a time of deep uncertainty involving access to health care, many of your member companies are taking retaliatory actions against FQHCs and other nonprofit health care providers that utilize legally permissible channels, such as contract pharmacies, to dispense 340B drugs. This coercive behavior is ultimately most harmful to patients and should be reversed.”
The 340B Drug Pricing Program requires drug manufacturers who receive reimbursements through Medicaid to provide discounted drugs to eligible public and nonprofit health care organizations, including Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs), hospitals, Ryan White HIV/AIDS clinics, and other safety net providers. Those providers in turn use 340B savings to provide discounted drugs to patients, especially those who are low-income or uninsured, and expand access to essential patient care. Covered 340B providers are allowed to contract with pharmacies (known as “contract pharmacies”) to dispense 340B drugs.
The senators also called on drug manufacturers to stop the practice of requiring 340B providers to submit claims data – and threatening to deny 340B pricing for drugs dispensed through contract pharmacies if providers did not provide the requested data – pointing out that this excessive and burdensome data request is not tied to federal 340B compliance obligations: “[t]hese onerous requirements from the pharmaceutical industry’s 340B Program manufacturers are egregious oversteps that will limit the ability of 340B covered entities to provide affordable care, and ultimately, harm patients.”
The senators highlighted that the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which oversees the 340B Program, has agreed that the steps taken by drug manufacturers put patient access to discounted drugs at risk. HRSA has recently stated: “Manufacturers that refuse to honor contract pharmacy orders may be significantly limiting access to 340B discounted drugs for many underserved and vulnerable populations. Many of these populations may reside in geographically isolated areas and rely on contract pharmacies as a critical point of access for obtaining their prescriptions.”
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