{"id":18574,"date":"2024-12-17T09:00:41","date_gmt":"2024-12-17T10:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18574"},"modified":"2024-12-18T14:26:15","modified_gmt":"2024-12-18T14:26:15","slug":"drugmakers-paid-pbms-not-to-restrict-opioid-prescriptions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=18574","title":{"rendered":"Drugmakers Paid PBMs Not to Restrict Opioid Prescriptions"},"content":{"rendered":"
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In 2017, the drug industry middleman Express Scripts announced that it was taking decisive steps to curb abuse of the prescription painkillers that had fueled America\u2019s overdose crisis. The company said it was \u201cputting the brakes on the opioid epidemic\u201d by making it harder to get potentially dangerous amounts of the drugs.<\/p>\n

The announcement, which came after pressure from federal health regulators, was followed by similar declarations from the other two companies that control access to prescription drugs for most Americans.<\/p>\n

The self-congratulatory statements, however, didn\u2019t address an important question: Why hadn\u2019t the middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, acted sooner to address a crisis that had been building for decades?<\/p>\n

One reason, a New York Times investigation found: Drugmakers had been paying them not to.<\/p>\n

For years, the benefit managers, or P.B.M.s, took payments from opioid manufacturers, including Purdue Pharma, in return for not restricting the flow of pills. As tens of thousands of Americans overdosed and died from prescription painkillers, the middlemen collected billions of dollars in payments.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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The details of these backroom deals \u2014 laid out in hundreds of documents, some previously confidential, reviewed by The Times \u2014 expose a mostly untold chapter of the opioid epidemic and provide a rare look at the modus operandi of the companies at the heart of the prescription drug supply chain.<\/p>\n

The P.B.M.s exert extraordinary control over what drugs people can receive and at what price. The three dominant companies \u2014 Express Scripts, CVS Caremark and Optum Rx \u2014 oversee prescriptions for more than 200 million people and are part of health care conglomerates that sit near the top of the Fortune 500 list.<\/p>\n

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In 2017, the drug industry middleman Express Scripts announced that it was taking decisive steps to curb abuse of the prescription painkillers that had fueled America\u2019s overdose crisis. The company said it was \u201cputting the brakes on the opioid epidemic\u201d by making it harder to get potentially dangerous amounts of the drugs.The announcement, which came after pressure from federal health regulators, was followed by similar declarations from the other two companies that control access to prescription drugs for most Americans.The self-congratulatory statements, however, didn\u2019t address an important question: Why hadn\u2019t the middlemen, known as pharmacy benefit managers, acted sooner to address a crisis that had been building for decades?One reason, a New York Times investigation found: Drugmakers had been paying them not to.For years, the benefit managers, or P.B.M.s, took payments from opioid manufacturers, including Purdue Pharma, in return for not restricting the flow of pills. As tens of thousands of Americans overdosed and died from prescription painkillers, the middlemen collected billions of dollars in payments.The details of these backroom deals \u2014 laid out in hundreds of documents, some previously confidential, reviewed by The Times \u2014 expose a mostly untold chapter of the opioid epidemic and provide a rare look at the modus operandi of the companies at the heart of the prescription drug supply chain.The P.B.M.s exert extraordinary control over what drugs people can receive and at what price. The three dominant companies \u2014 Express Scripts, CVS Caremark and Optum Rx \u2014 oversee prescriptions for more than 200 million people and are part of health care conglomerates that sit near the top of the Fortune 500 list.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18576,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18574","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18574","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18574"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18574\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18577,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18574\/revisions\/18577"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18576"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18574"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18574"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18574"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}