Business and health care leaders, policy experts, and patient advocacy groups announced last week they are forming the PBM Accountability Project of Iowa to advocate for lower prescription drug prices. The announcement was made during the annual meeting of the Iowa Pharmacy Association.

The members share a mission to ensure patients pay no more than necessary for medications and to protect small businesses and Iowans’ right to make informed health care decisions, a news release said.

“We all recognize patients need solutions to high out-of-pocket costs for prescriptions,” Seth Brown with the Iowa Pharmacy Association said in a prepared statement. “By coming together to tackle the monopolistic and unfair business practices of PBMs [pharmacy benefit managers] we have a real chance to make a difference for patients in Iowa.”

Pharmacy benefit managers are third-party companies that act as intermediaries between insurance companies and pharmaceutical manufacturers. The PBM Accountability Project will advocate for state and federal policies that promote accountability and prevent what it considers to be predatory practices.

There are three PBM corporations that currently control approximately 89% of the U.S. market share, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. The PBM Accountability Project says this limits competition that would reduce costs of prescription drugs for Iowans.

The group says PBMs also affect the affordability of prescription medicine.

“PBMs were originally intended to give patients and purchasers leverage when negotiating prescription medicine prices,” the news release said. “However, these multi-billion-dollar corporations fail to pass a very large portion of those savings on to the patients, employee health plans, and public insurance programs that pay the final price.”

Jeanne Burmeister, executive director of Prevent Blindness Iowa, said it is “past time” to make prescription drug prices transparent.

“In order to ensure that Iowa patients are paying a fair price that they can afford, we need to reform the pharmacy benefit manager business to prevent these entities from manipulating the price of prescription medicines,” Burmeister said.