Earlier this month, HHS was working on an aggressive deadline. President Joe Biden had given them 45 days to develop a comprehensive plan to lower drug prices, and the clock was ticking. HHS asked stakeholders across the spectrum to provide input during a special roundtable discussion. Guess who they called from pharmacy?

I’m now home after an amazing two weeks on the road for the Great Midwest Pharmacy Unity Tour. This was my first extended trip outside DC as CEO, where I met many of pharmacy’s patriots and did some meaningful business, all to move pharmacy forward.

It should be abundantly clear that APhA has several bones to pick with big pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). These PBMs, operating under the guise of altruism, paint themselves as saints who work to lower prescription drug prices for the masses. Instead, they actively game the system by knocking out pharmacy competitors, reducing patient access to medicines and pharmacist services, and ripping off patients, employers, and taxpayers.

In June of 2018, after months of intense pressure from the Ohio Pharmacists Association, Ohio state lawmakers, and Columbus Dispatch investigative journalists, the Ohio Department of Medicaid released a blockbuster report showing that PBMs working on behalf of Medicaid managed care plans charged the state $224 million in hidden spread pricing. 

A true pharmacy icon, Dr. Joseph A. Oddis, left the Earth this week. He began his life of service to pharmacy and its patients as a young man, going on to become the CEO of ASHP for 37 years and the recipient of the profession’s most distinguished accolades, including the Remington Medal and Hugo Schaefer Award. Over the course of his long career, Dr. Oddis touched every crevice and contour of pharmacy practice as we know it, and in doing so made an untold impact on the lives of millions of patients under pharmacists’ care.