HJAR Sep/Oct 2025

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS I  SEP / OCT 2025 25 Vinson and independent pharmacists have repeatedly denounced PBMs’ ability to set their competitors’prices and steer cli- ents to their own affiliate pharmacies. They have also claimed PBMs routinely break or skirt around Arkansas’ existing laws meant to regulate them. Act 900 of 2015 required PBMs to pay pharmacies at least the national average of what drugstores pay wholesalers for drugs, and two 2018 laws prohibited PBMs from reimbursing their affiliated pharmacies in Arkansas at a higher rate than their locally owned competitors. Three pharmacy benefit managers — Opt- umRx, Express Scripts, and CVS Caremark, all of whom sued Arkansas over Act 624 — manage 79% of prescription drug insurance claims for approximately 270 million peo- ple, according to a July 2024 Federal Trade Commission report. Vinson noted that even if Act 624’s lack of enforcement means nonprofit hospi- tal pharmacies can’t provide patients with specific drugs, the existence of those phar- macies due to Act 52 still broadens patient access to other drugs. Administrators from Baptist Health and Mercy Arkansas Hospitals both expressed support for Act 52 before lawmakers in January. Baptist does not plan to submit an application for a retail pharmacy permit immediately but still “broadly supports the concept that hospitals should have that opportunity to fulfill the need” for more accessible medications, particularly for infusion drugs, said Jordan Burgess, Bap- tist’s vice president of government relations and public affairs. Meanwhile, the Southwest Arkansas Regional Medical Center is in the process of becoming a nonprofit hospital, said Clay Hobbs, chief operating officer of Pafford Health Systems, the locally-owned medi- cal service company that runs the hospital in Hope. The hospital plans to take advantage of Act 52 upon becoming a nonprofit, and pro- viding reliable access to prescription drugs in an area with few existing pharmacies will be a “great opportunity for our rural com- munities” in Southwest Arkansas, Hobbs said. The State Board of Pharmacy is required to process pharmacy permit applications within a month of receiving them, and pro- cessing includes an on-site inspection of the facility, board executive director John Kirt- ley said in an email. CARTI Cancer Center has 18 locations statewide, including 11 licensed pharmacies. Some of those locations are limited in what cancer drugs they can provide thanks to limited distribution networks, and Act 630 will alleviate that, CARTI CEO Adam Head told a House committee in March, speaking in favor of the legislation. The only opponent of Act 630 before the Legislature was Pharmaceutical Research andManufacturers of America, a trade orga- nization representing drug manufacturers. PHRMA supported the intent of the legis- lation but wanted more time “to make sure there’s no harm with this new [drug] deliv- ery system,”Sharon Lamberton, the organi- zation’s deputy vice president of state policy and external outreach, told the same House committee. However, Act 630 will make it easier for the University of Arkansas for Medical Sci- ences to provide patients with specialized cancer drugs, including those from clinical trials in which UAMS participates, spokes- person Leslie Taylor said. “We’re able to get them during the clini- cal trials, but then once we’ve done our part to help with this, that’s over with, and we have trouble accessing the drugs directly,” Taylor said. n © 2025 Arkansas Advocate. Used with permission. https://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by/4.0/ Vrbin, Tess. “Laws Meant to Improve Arkansans’ Access to Prescription Drugs Set to Go into Effect.” Arkansas Advocate, August 4, 2025. https://arkansasadvocate. com/2025/08/04/laws-meant-to-improve- arkansans-access-to-prescription-drugs-set- to-go-into-effect/.