A Discovery Plan for Pharmacy Benefit Managers’ Collusion

The Federal Trade Commission (“FTC”) has recently filed an administrative complaint against the Big 3 pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) claiming they engaged in unfair conduct in violation of Section 5 of the FTC Act, 15 U.S.C. § 45. They never used the word “collusion” in the complaint and chose not to sue under The Sherman Act, Section 1.  We view this as a novel case of market design collusion rather than a case of price collusion. The Big 3 PBMs are conceptualized as auction