Legislation to delink PBM payments from drug prices advances in House Energy and Commerce health subcommittee, putting a key pharma priority closer to the finish line. Whether patients will see any benefit remains a worry.

A plan to ban rebates in the US Medicare outpatient drug program was a signature policy proposal of the Trump Administration – but has never been implemented. A Senate bill tests a different approach to the same goal of ensuring that price concessions by manufacturers translate into lower prices charged at the pharmacy counter.

Senate Finance Committee’s PBM legislation would essentially pass through rebate value at the pharmacy counter for some drugs, block situations where beneficiaries pay more than plans and reward biosimilars that have list prices substantially below their reference products.