Senate HELP Committee Considers 340B Program’s Goals

Representatives from the pharmaceutical and hospital industries agreed the 340B drug discount program needs reforms but disagreed as to what changes are needed in testimony before the Senate health committee last Thursday.

“Today there is confusion about the program’s goals and requirements because Congress did not make clear in the 1992 law what the purpose of the program actually is,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions committee.

Government estimates, Alexander said, show a 30 percent increase in 340B hospitals’ spending on discounted drugs from 2015 to 2016 alone. In 2015, those hospitals saved $6 billion through the program, just over 1.3 percent of all drug purchases in the U.S. that year.