On Tuesday July 28, the Arkansas State Board of Pharmacy suspended enforcement of a 2025 Arkansas law, Act 630, two months after a federal court deemed the measure likely unconstitutional.
Act 630 purportedly aimed to “prevent pharmaceutical manufacturers from restricting prescription medication distribution to a limited network of pharmacies, particularly out-of-state pharmacies,” requiring them to include some Arkansas pharmacies into such networks approved by the state if such networks were maintained more than three months after launch. If companies did not comply, the law would impose a $10,000 per day noncompliance penalty and potentially could result in loss of Arkansas Medicaid coverage for all of the manufacturer’s drug products.
The Board of Pharmacy emphasized that its decision was based on the opinion from a federal court that Act 630 likely violates the U.S. Constitution’s prohibition on state laws that unduly restrict interstate commerce, as well as on advice from the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office that the law is unconstitutional and could not be successfully defended in future litigation…