Senator Doctor Jeff Gordon Celebrates Landmark Bipartisan Drug Task Force Bill Passed in Final Moments of Legislative Session

HARTFORD, CT – In a decisive victory for the people of Connecticut, State Sen. Jeff Gordon (R-Woodstock), a physician and a Co-Chair of the Legislature’s Bipartisan Prescription Drug Pricing Task Force, applauded the General Assembly’s final passage of An Act Implementing Recommendations of the Bipartisan Drug Task Force (HB 7192) just moments before the close of the 2025 legislative session. Sen. Gordon worked actively on this bill as a legislative leader, including with Governor Lamont and his staff.

“This is a historic win for every patient who’s ever been caught in the middle of a broken system of expensive drug prices, for every local pharmacist forced to navigate red tape or be boxed out of insurance networks, and for every health care professional trying to do what’s right for medical treatments,” said Senator Gordon. “I’m proud that through the bipartisan work I did that Connecticut is stepping up as a national leader and saying clearly: our health care system must be transparent, fair, prepared for the future, and focused on people not on profits.”

“When last year I raised the idea of this Task Force, I welcomed working with my fellow Co-Chairs Sen Matthew Lesser, Rep Jillian Gilchrest, and Rep Tracy Marra. This has been a truly bipartisan effort involving many stakeholders and multiple, in-depth public meetings. We faced opposition from interest groups, even up to the last minute, but through hard work and determination, prevailed to do what is right.”

The sweeping bipartisan legislation includes bold reforms to how pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) operate, establishes duties of care on PBMs and health plans, improves transparency on pricing and rebate practices, gets PBMs to pass onto consumers some of the financial savings they make in profits (billions of dollars per federal reports) through negotiated for drugs, protects local pharmacies from unfair reimbursement claw backs or being cut out of networks, and launches a first-of-its-kind task force to study and mitigate prescription drug shortages. It also empowers the Department of Economic and Community Development to invest in local production of essential medications through an expanded Strategic Supply Chain Initiative.

“As a physician, I’ve seen firsthand how profit-driven middlemen and supply disruptions harm patient care” Gordon said. “This legislation is about putting patients first, ensuring they can access life-saving medications in a timely manner when they need the care without being overcharged, misled, or left waiting during critical shortages.”

Among the bill’s highlights:
• Strong duty of care obligations for PBMs to act in good faith and disclose conflicts of interests.
• Ban on “spread pricing.” PBMs can no longer charge health plans more than they pay pharmacies.
• Price transparency requirements at the point of sale so patients pay the lowest available price.
• Annual reporting on pricing and profit practices between health plans, PBMs, and mail-order pharmacies. This could lower drug costs to patients because PBMs should not keep all the savings they negotiate as profits without benefiting patients who pay big prices.
• A new task force charged with identifying high-risk drug shortages and proposing solutions, including in-state manufacturing.

“This is the kind of forward-thinking, bipartisan legislation that makes Connecticut a leader in health care,” Senator Gordon added. “We’ve built something smart, sensible, and strong, and I’m proud to have spearheaded and directly helped shape it from the start and the inside out.”

“This isn’t just policy, it’s people’s lives. And we delivered.” Gordon said.