Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders signed HB1150 into law today, a landmark bill that prohibits Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) from owning pharmacies while negotiating drug prices—effectively banning what the state sees as anti-competitive behavior in the pharmaceutical industry.
“For far too long, drug middlemen called PBMs have taken advantage of lax regulations to abuse customers, inflate drug prices, and cut off access to critical medications. Not anymore,” said Governor Sanders. “These massive corporations are attacking our state because we will be the first in the country to hold them accountable for their anticompetitive actions, but Arkansas has never been afraid to be a conservative leader for America.”
PBMs act as intermediaries between pharmacies and insurance companies, managing prescription drug benefits for millions of Americans. In recent years, however, the nation’s largest PBMs have acquired pharmacy chains, a move critics say enables them to manipulate drug prices and limit consumer choice. Currently, three PBMs dominate the market—handling 80% of all prescriptions and generating 70% of all specialty drug revenue nationwide.
With HB1150, Arkansas becomes the first state in the nation to enact a law specifically targeting PBM ownership of pharmacies, setting the stage for potential nationwide reform.
