[applause] pbm's are middlemen in the health-care industry. they extract extra profit from patients with opaque and often predatory tactics. they are not doctors, but they work with insurance companies to deny people the drugs and treatment that doctors prescribe. not only are they driven up health care costs for illinois families by hundreds of millions of dollars per year, but they are also putting small, local independent pharmacies out of business. michelle dyer of macoupin county is a pharmacy owner -- will you please stand and be recognized? [applause] michelle was forced to close three of her stores after years of skyrocketing pbm fees. her likelihood was threatened, and so were her patients. she is not alone. we are talking about rural, small businesses being ruined by large pharmacy store chains that own pbm's. michelle and all the independent, family-run families -- pharmacies are under threat, and they deserve a level playing field. that's why i am introducing the prescription drug affordability act, to rein in the unfair practices

[applause] pbm's are middlemen in the health-care industry. they extract extra profit from patients with opaque and often predatory tactics. they are not doctors, but they work with insurance companies to deny people the drugs and treatment that doctors prescribe. not only are they driven up health care costs for illinois families by hundreds of millions of dollars per year, but they are also putting small, local independent pharmacies out of business. michelle dyer of macoupin county is a pharmacy owner -- will you please stand and be recognized? [applause] michelle was forced to close three of her stores after years of skyrocketing pbm fees. her likelihood was threatened, and so were her patients. she is not alone. we are talking about rural, small businesses being ruined by large pharmacy store chains that own pbm's. michelle and all the independent, family-run families -- pharmacies are under threat, and they deserve a level playing field. that's why i am intro drug affoy act, to rein in the unfair practices of pbm's, reduced drug costs by

president trump is committed to fixing pbms. sen. cantwell: you believe we should pass these laws that have been proposed? mr. kennedy: i have not read the entire law so i do not know but i think we need to perform the pbms. all of these vested interests that are draining money. from the system. sen. cantwell: someone suggested you should convene the pbms and talk to them about self-regulation. i am trying to distinguish between these people who basically are doing illegal activities -- they are creating pharmacy deserts in my state. i'm asking you whether you believe we have to legislate in this area? mr. kennedy: again, i am not being evasive, i do not know exactly what the law says. i met with the pbms, i met with pharma, my job is to meet with stakeholders. i have been meeting with stakeholders for 40 years. people i was doing. you want to hear from the other side. i support the efforts of this committee to come up with bipartisan legislation president trump wants to get the excess profits away from the pbms and send it back to p

cantwell: i want to move to pbm's. pbm's are driving up drug prices.one of the biggest things we need to do in the new administration is get a handle on everything that is driving up prices and lower them. the report found pbm's generated $1.4 billion from spread pricing. that is where they are able to basically set the price, not reimburse pharmacies and then pocket the rest. we have had bipartisan legislation in several different committees to get at this. what do you think the solution is? mr. kennedy: i think one of the notable achievements of this panel was the pbm legislation that they put together in a bipartisan way. i haven't met a single senator, actually one only of the 60 odd senators that i talked to, all of them talked about pbm is and how important it was. president trump during his first administration pushed through a law to give transparency to pbm's that got overruled during the biden administration. luckily this panel is resuscitating that. president trump is committed to fixing pbm's. sen. cantwell: my time is running out. you beli

. >> course, pbms are. >> a. big focus. >> of the pharmaceutical industry.ears ago launched his costplus drugs. and the idea there is that he sells the drugs that he buys for just the cost that he. >> bought them for. >> in a 15% markup. and, you know, mark cuban telling me at this point that it's been pretty successful. but so far they've really only been able to sell generics, and it's going to take a lot more to get the branded companies, the companies that are selling the branded drugs, to work with him. >> as we. >> convince those ceos to. >> move away. >> from the. >> big pbms. >> so you've seen, you know, box.com, tyson. >> foods. >> at&t and a growing list of others, you know, probably 22 million lives covered. if we can get to 60 or 70 million lives covered, then it's okay for merck and others to say, look, we're not beholden to those. big pbms any longer. >> now, i know it's a health care conference, but i did have to ask about the big mavericks trade. that has been very controversial. i asked mark if he's regretting his decision to sell his majori

price negotiations, tariffs on pharmaceutical products and the role of pharmacy benefit managers or pbmslled middlemen that negotiate drug prices on behalf of insurers and have come under extreme criticism for not passing on discounts to patients. and they pose an obstacle to a lot of drug developers. we want the talk about one called bridge bio. the bye pharmaceutical company -- biopharmaceutical company makes medicines for genetic diseases. bridge bio's stock is up about a half a percent. it is off the highs of the session, but it opened at a 3-year peak following its fourth quarter earnings report this morning which showed revenue of $5.88 million, which is a pretty significant 237% increase over last year. bridgebio ceo neil kumar if joins me now in a fox business exclusive. well, i'm dying to know what you would have asked president trumu would have said to him and let him know about your side of the business if you were in that room, neil. >> well, first of all, thanks so much for having me on. i think question number one is, as they take this blank sheet of patient out and redesig

. >> further scrutiny into those pbms. like the firms caremark. >> unit. >> you can see shares up almost 16% right now and promising growth in biogen's. breakthrough alzheimer's drug treatment. not enough to lift the stock, though the pharma giant warning of revenue declines as sales of its multiple sclerosis products continue to struggle in a competitive market. biogen down almost 5%. >> scott. >> all right, cristina, thank you. back to you in a little bit. kristina. partsinevelos. we're just getting started here on closing bell. coming up next, former dallas fed president richard fisher. he is back. we get his first take on today's hotter than expected cpi and what it really means for fed policy. from here we are live at the new york stock exchange. you're watching closing bell on you're watching closing bell on cnbc. -what've you got there, larry? -time machine. you gonna go back and see how the pyramids were built or something? nope. ellen and i want to go on vacation, so i'm going to go back to last week and buy a win

families follow through and the fact that he's been walking back things food prices and by the way pbm legislation i know if you caught what happened here a couple of weeks ago. trump basically everybody willing to listen that he was going to go after middlemen were making too much money this was bad for it's bad for seniors. and then when it came to talking to the caucus, you know, he and elon musk, you know, walked away. and i basically said they acted like porch pirates. we had democrats and republicans delivering a good health package and they it back. yeah. and then i hit the deadline so do see yourself as republicans go down this reconciliation where they don't need your vote but how do you see democrats making noise on tax policy? what? we'll use hearings. we use our work on the floor. we were out on the capitol, you know, yesterday. we're going to take every opportunity we've, got winning messages. i mean, you know, i look, for example, direct file, you know, which is basically hugely kind of service for working working families. and i'm going to say and it very vigorously, we'

known exactly what they will be discussing on that front, perhaps the issues of medicare payments and pbmssed. again, that's the ceo of pfizer arriving at the white house today. the exchange will be back after this pretty dour market mood. we'll have more after a break. >> with allegra. >> i hope. >> you can stop being sneezy without feeling sleepy. >> get 0% brain interference for fast non-drowsy allergy relief fast non-drowsy allergy relief with what if you could invest in a future where skin cancer treatment is noninvasive and relatively painless? medicus pharma's groundbreaking solution delivers chemotherapy directly to the tumor site, offering a mostly painless alternative to invasive surgeries. with the skin cancer treatment market expected to exceed $20 billion by 2030. medicus is poised to meet the demand for cost effective non-surgical options. now advancing phase two studies. medicus pharma, leading the charge in skin cancer innovation. when emergency strikes, first responders are the first ones in... but on outdated networks, the crucial technology they depend on, is limited. th

we can start by putting more sunshine on pharmacy benefit managers' practices and holding these pbm'sountable. we should also establish price transparency on prescription drug tv ads. knowing what something costs before buying it is just common sense and very helpful to the consumer. transparency will bring more accountability and lower costs to consumers. mr. kennedy must also protect and improve access to rural health care. the previous administration dragged its feet in opening up spots for what is termed the rural community hospital demonstration programs. hhs must also listen to the concerns from rural pharmaceutical sis and ensure rural hospitals benefit from additional physician slots that congress has authorized. i look forward to strengthening the new and voluntary rural emergency program to ensure that it's working for rural communities. extending telehealth access and supporting physicians getting a fair reimbursement under medicare. i also expect hhs to support healthy moms and babies by improving care coordination and using telehealth in rural areas. hhs should work with

but as you mentioned, there are number of other issues on other regulatory fronts, be they the pbm, the insurance, whether there is denial of care, which has become a real hot button issue these days. >> yeah, bertha, that was where i was going to ask to make that distinction between what you're talking about here with medicare advantage and obviously denial of coverage, where, you know, earlier i mentioned bill ackman, who's been taking shots at the company. they have been responding. i know you have reporting on that as well in terms of mischaracterization of a dispute that ackman cited in a previous tweet. but he's using this yet again as an opportunity to call into question united health care overall. >> well, it's one of those things where they are the largest health care services company right. they have more doctors than almost anyone else. they are one of the largest players when it comes to medicare advantage. but this is an issue in terms of when it comes to whether it's denial of care or when it comes to this upcoding higher risk adjustments. it's not just something that peop

biosimilars is having is very positive to see that you know we saw cbs out first with this and then other pbms following into this year and then again obesity and diabetes driving trends. you know the next slide shows as i mentioned earlier, you know, we saw this uptick over the last several years in the utilization percentage of members with the prescription fill overall in our database for diabetes reasons. that's the lower part of these bar charts. but where you really start to see starting and you know, start of 2023 and especially into 2024 is the ramp up of utilization for anti-obesity. so you know influencers as a relates to what i'll be presenting to you on reading recommendations and plan experience in the next couple of months, you know the degree to which all these are going to influence us as a major source and certainly very, you know, very plan specific. we do expect about 9% typical cost trend for plans nationwide into 2025 but again lower for managed hmo plans and this is about 1% higher than those average client budget increases that i presented earlier. we're obviously going

you've got pbm.inesses are making. >> obviously united healthcare is a big player there. now you have this in. terms of. >> overcharging patients and potentially. >> defrauding. >> you know, medicare and medicaid out of different funds. so i mean, the risk really run the gamut here. >> it's tough to say because here united healthcare. >> is saying. >> you need more. >> they're not turning down because they're saying, no, you need you got a hormonal. imbalance we found and you were going to get medicare to pay for it. it's the. opposite of what? of turning. >> down necessarily. and then they're denying claims on the other end. so the claims on the other end. >> for what you. >> really might need. >> all right. we got to end it there. we got some breaking news jared from. >> what's up. >> we've got some new news this morning. coinbase just announcing the sec has now agreed to dismiss its enforcement case against the company. these are the charges that were filed back in 2023, when the sec sued coinbase