The AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF), has announced that Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will hear this week from several friend of the court (amicus curiae) witnesses opposed to the nearly $70 billion acquisition of Aetna by CVS Health Corp regarding anti-competitive concerns raised by the merger.
To the benefit of both patients and healthcare consumers nationwide, AHF says a federal judge will hold an evidentiary hearing, the first of its kind, in what is known as a Tunney Act proceeding - to consider opposition to the pending $69 billion merger of Aetna and CVS Health Corp. that was voiced by friends of the court (amicus curiae), including AHF. Other amici witnesses include the American Medical Association (AMA), Consumer Action and U.S. PIRG (U.S. Public Interest Research Group).
The Tunney Act requires that merger settlements like that proposed between DOJ (Department of Justice) and CVS/Aetna be reviewed by a federal judge to ensure that the conditions imposed on the merger sufficiently address the competitive harms identified by the DOJ.
In an order in April, Judge Richard J. Leon of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia invited the amici to propose witnesses to testify at the hearing. The court also allowed the proponents of the merger to propose witnesses in rebuttal. The hearings take place this week in Judge Leon’s courtroom in Washington from June 4th to June 6th.
“As the largest nonprofit provider of HIV and AIDS treatment in the country, AHF is very concerned about the CVS/Aetna merger, which will combine the largest pharmacy chain and one of the largest PBMs with the third-largest health insurer, creating a mega company that will be powerfully positioned to harm independent pharmacies, patient choice, quality of patient care, and competition in general,” said Laura Boudreau, Chief of Operations/Risk Management and Quality Improvement in the release. “For HIV patients, the key to remaining healthy is adhering to their sometime complex medicine regimes. This can be especially hard for patients who face obstacles like stigma, comorbidities, and social determinants. The patients’ trusted providers – doctors as well as pharmacists – play a crucial role in helping patients overcome these obstacles. Consolidations of PBMs, pharmacy chains, and insurers threaten to break up the patients’ care teams and push HIV patients into faceless, nonspecialized constructs like minute clinics and meds-by-mail order that will make adherence even more difficult.”
