Federal PBM probe culminates decades of M&A

A history of M&A

The pharmacy benefit manager model originated as a way to aggregate pharmaceutical buyers into purchasing groups that would have greater leverage with drug manufacturers. The drug company Merck saw owning a PBM as a means of getting its medications on health insurance formularies and purchased MedCo Containment Services for $6 billion in 1993.

The deal inspired other drugmakers to follow suit. In 1998, the FTC forced Merck to…