Senate will take on PBMs this week

The Senate Finance Committee will be holding a hearing Tuesday on the role of pharmacy benefit managers — the middlemen of the biopharma industry — in the current drug pricing crisis. Drug companies had their own Senate hearing back in February, but have done a bang-up job at deflecting blame to the inscrutable PBMs. 

“The PBMs, they’re going to have to establish their credibility. They’re going to have to establish their voice, their value. They start off behind the eight ball,” William LaForge, the author of the 2010 book “Testifying Before Congress” and a former lobbyist for the drug company Amgen, told STAT's Nick Florko.

Read more about the five PBMs that will be testifying  — and the strengths and vulnerabilities each will bring.