Pharmacy Law Lowdown: Independent Pharmacy’s Most Challenging Legal Concerns

In episode 3 of the Pharmacy Law Lowdown, hosts Dae Lee, PharmD, Esq, CPBS, and Lucas Morgan, Esq, shareholders at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, discuss the common concerns their independent pharmacy clients have been raising toward the end of 2025, from PBM reform and boards of pharmacy developments to rules and regulations behind the compounding of glucagon-like peptide-1 agonists.

Lee and Morgan recently gathered at the National Community Pharmacists Association’s 2025 Convention & Expo to get insights into common and ongoing legal challenges facing community pharmacy today. Using their time at the conference to meet with pharmacists and business leaders in the industry, they also met to discuss these independent pharmacy developments for the Drug Topics audience.

“I think there's got to be an industry-wide education that needs to be taught in terms of why the drug spend goes up every year, why the manufacturers are paying a lot of rebates every year, and the patient premium and out-of-pocket cost goes up every year,” said Lee. “It's all because we have a vertically integrated system dominated by 3 PBMs: CVS Caremark, OptumRx, and Express Scripts.”

While hosts Lee and Morgan touched on a variety of pharmacy law topics—some significantly familiar to pharmacy experts, others completely novel—they gathered to provide their insights to independent pharmacy owners, operators, and employees all across the country. Learn from pharmacy law experts and common Drug Topics contributors to better understand what the legal pharmacy landscape is doing at this very moment.

Pharmacy Law Lowdown is a podcast offering from Drug Topics, hosted by Dae Lee, PharmD, Esq, CPBS, and Lucas Morgan, Esq, shareholders at Buchanan Ingersoll & Rooney, a national law firm that provides legal, business, regulatory, and government relations advice to a wide range of clients. In each episode, they discuss various issues that are impacting independent pharmacies and actionable advice that pharmacists can use to protect themselves and their practice.

Be sure to tune in every month on Drug Topics for important updates in pharmacy and how to handle them. All episodes of Pharmacy Law Lowdown will be available in video format via DrugTopics on the second Friday of each month. Check out our most recent episode from earlier this summer: Getting to Know the Hosts, Mid-Year Updates.

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