Supreme Court Requests Briefs in Case Regarding State Regulation of PBMs and ERISA Preemption

Today, in a sign that it may take up a case about the authority of states to regulate Pharmacy Benefit Managers (PBMs) and the limits of ERISA preemption, the U.S. Supreme Court has asked the Solicitor General of the United States to file a brief in Pharm. Care Mgmt. Ass’n v. Mulready, U.S., No. 23-1213.

The case arises from a U.S. Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling invalidating an Oklahoma law regulating PBMs on the grounds that the state law violates ERISA preemption. The Oklahoma law imposed several restrictions on PBMs, including: (1) distance thresholds for access to retail pharmacies; (2) limits on blocking rival pharmacies from their networks; (3) a prohibition on paying rival pharmacies less than pharmacies the PBM owns; and (4) a ban on “spread pricing,” in which a PBM pays a pharmacy less for a drug than what it received.