(Finance) – The United States Federal Trade Commission (FTC) said that major pharmacy operators have inflated drug prices to get a profit of 7.3 billion dollars. That’s according to the FTC’s second report on the topic, following its first announcement in September, which focuses on pharmacy managers’ influence on generic drugs, including significant price markups for cancer, HIV and a variety of other critical drugs.
The latest report found that the “Big 3” (Caremark’s CVS HealthExpress Scripts by CignaOptumRx by UnitedHealth Group) have increased many specialty generic drugs dispensed at their affiliated pharmacies by thousands of percent and many others by hundreds of percent. These significant markups generated more than $7.3 billion in drug distribution revenue in excess of the estimated drug acquisition costs from 2017 to 2022.
“The FTC staff’s second interim report finds that three major pharmacy operators have increased costs for a wide range of life-saving drugs, including drugs to treat heart disease and cancer,” said FTC Chairwoman, Lina M. Khan.