Bristol Myers Squibb will limit 340B drug discounts for safety net hospitals' contract pharmacies, the drugmaker said in a Jan. 14 letter to hospitals.
The policy, effective March 1, will apply new restrictions on access to all drugs other than its suite of immunomodulatory imide drugs, or IMiDs, for which the drugmaker is modifying access. Hospitals without an entity-owned pharmacy may select up to two contract pharmacies to receive 340B discounts, one to dispense IMiDs —which are already restricted to a limited number of pharmacies — and another to dispense non-IMiD products. Federal grantees may still use multiple contract pharmacies for non-IMiD products and one contract pharmacy for IMiDs. The policy does not affect pharmacies owned entirely by a 340B hospital.
The move makes Bristol Myers Squibb the 12th drugmaker to restrict 340B discounts behind AbbVie, Amgen, AstraZeneca, Boehringer Ingelheim, Eli Lilly, Merck, Novartis, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, UCB and United Therapeutics.
Drugmakers started imposing restrictions on discounts afforded to hospitals in the federal 340B program in July 2020. Last month, more than 800 participating hospitals urged the federal government to appeal a Nov. 5 federal court decision that upheld price denials from two drugmakers.