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Trends That Matter for New Multiple Sclerosis Value-Based Contract

January 16, 2020

Under a value-based contracting agreement believed to be the first of its kind, UPMC Health Plan will receive discounts for two Biogen Inc. multiple sclerosis (MS) drugs — Tecfidera (dimethyl fumarate) and Avonex (interferon beta-1a) — based on patient-reported measures of disability progression. The agreement is also based on research with a panel of key MS stakeholders who identified the most meaningful outcomes in relapsing forms of MS, AIS Health reported.

Under a value-based contracting agreement believed to be the first of its kind, UPMC Health Plan will receive discounts for two Biogen Inc. multiple sclerosis (MS) drugs — Tecfidera (dimethyl fumarate) and Avonex (interferon beta-1a) — based on patient-reported measures of disability progression. The agreement is also based on research with a panel of key MS stakeholders who identified the most meaningful outcomes in relapsing forms of MS, AIS Health reported.

UPMC’s Center for Value-Based Pharmacy Initiatives led the research and developed the value-based contract.

Previous value-based contracts for MS drugs have connected payment to outcome indicators derived from claims and electronic health record data, says Rochelle Henderson, Ph.D., Express Scripts’ vice president of research and a co-author of the study report.

“This research [gives] a greater level of transparency into the outcome indicators that rank the highest in terms of value for stakeholders,” she says. “The key advantage of patient-reported outcomes is that it gets at information that can be used to evaluate the success of a medication where that information is not available by traditional means.”

The graphic below shows the current market access to Tecfidera and Avonex for all controllers under the pharmacy benefit.

Radar on Market Access: State Lawmakers Tee Up Bills on PBMs, Drug Pricing This Year

January 16, 2020

State lawmakers will continue to focus on the cost of prescription drugs as the 2020 legislative season gets underway, potentially advancing measures to require the disclosure of manufacturer drug pricing information and bills to limit or eliminate the role PBMs play in state Medicaid programs, AIS Health reported.

State lawmakers will continue to focus on the cost of prescription drugs as the 2020 legislative season gets underway, potentially advancing measures to require the disclosure of manufacturer drug pricing information and bills to limit or eliminate the role PBMs play in state Medicaid programs, AIS Health reported.

However, the abbreviated length of the election-year legislative sessions, plus some unexpected hiccups in states that already have passed bills on those issues, could limit how much actually gets done at the state level in 2020, legislative observers say.

“We expect considerable action this year, but it is a short session in most states, which limits the number of bills that will be considered,” says Trish Riley, executive director of the National Academy for State Health Policy. “We expect to see bills that address prices, address price gouging [and] allow importation. Several states may advance bills to allow a buy-in to public programs and the ability to bulk purchase drugs.”

In recent years, state lawmakers have been looking into managed care programs and their drug spend, turning to their PBM contracts as a source of potential savings, says Matt Magner, director of state government affairs for the National Community Pharmacists Association. West Virginia, for example, decided in 2017 to carve out its pharmacy benefits from its Medicaid program, Magner says, noting, “they saved $54 million in the first year they did that.”

Still, the pace of state legislative action regarding PBMs may not be as brisk in 2020 as it was in 2019. Riley says that PBMs already have been the subject of considerable state action, so it’s not clear how many more states will consider bills on PBM issues in 2020. “We may see several more states eliminate or deeply regulate PBMs in Medicaid and develop more enforceable contracts to ensure discounts are passed through,” she says.

Drug pricing likely will stay in the news, says Jeff Myers, founder of OptDis, but he anticipates a slowdown in drug price transparency legislation, in part because states that have approved such legislation are running into roadblocks in implementation.

Radar On Market Access: 2020 Could Be ‘Wild Year’ for Consolidated PBMs

January 14, 2020

Though the two major transactions that upended the PBM landscape — Cigna Corp. buying Express Scripts Holding Co. and CVS Health Corp. acquiring Aetna Inc. — have already taken place, that doesn’t mean the sector won’t see more changes this year, industry experts tell AIS Health.

Though the two major transactions that upended the PBM landscape — Cigna Corp. buying Express Scripts Holding Co. and CVS Health Corp. acquiring Aetna Inc. — have already taken place, that doesn’t mean the sector won’t see more changes this year, industry experts tell AIS Health.

“The market is evolving,” says Brian Anderson, a principal with Milliman, Inc. The year 2020 will be marked by a presidential election and significant price pressure on manufacturers, along with pharmacies trying to retain their margin, he adds, “so it’s going to be a really wild year.”

Indeed, 2019 ended with Prime Therapeutics LLC and Express Scripts unveiling a three-year collaboration in which the latter PBM will negotiate with pharmaceutical manufacturers, on behalf of Prime’s members, for drugs covered on the pharmacy benefit, as well as provide services related to retail network contracting.

By teaming up with Prime, Express Scripts will be leading rebate negotiations and pharmacy network development for 103 million people, Adam Fein, Ph.D., CEO of Pembroke Consulting, Inc.’s Drug Channels Institute, wrote in a blog post. “This combined volume of Express Scripts and Prime will have enormous leverage with manufacturers and pharmacies,” he noted.

To Ashraf Shehata, KPMG national sector leader for health care and life sciences, the Prime/Express Scripts partnership is yet another example of “pure play” PBMs’ move toward consolidation. Given that trend, the opportunity to scale up both organizations’ purchasing power, and “the ability to kind of lock in Blue clients,” Shehata says, “I think it makes a lot of sense” for the two PBMs to team up.

Employers, meanwhile, are likely to press PBMs of all varieties for innovative solutions — not just deep drug-pricing discounts — during the selling season for 2021 contracts, Anderson says.

Therefore, “there’ll probably be a lot of new innovators in the market — people coming up with new products that maybe look and sound different,” he says. “But the question people are going to have to ask is, how different really is it? And is it really a differentiator in the marketplace?”

MMIT Reality Check on Cystic Fibrosis (Jan 2020)

January 10, 2020

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for cystic fibrosis treatments, combined with news from key healthcare influencers, market access is shifting in this drug landscape.

According to our recent payer coverage analysis for cystic fibrosis treatments, combined with news from key healthcare influencers, market access is shifting in this drug landscape.

To help make sense of this new research, MMIT’s team of experts analyzes the data and summarizes the key findings for you. The following are brief highlights. To read the full piece, including payer coverage, drug competition and prescriber trends, click here.

Payer Coverage: A review of market access for cystic fibrosis treatments shows that under the pharmacy benefit, almost 45% of the lives under commercial formularies are covered with utilization management restrictions.

Trends: Cystic fibrosis transmembrane conductance regulator (CFTR) modulators (Vertex Pharmaceuticals’ Trikafta, Symdeko, Orkambi and Kalydeco) are the first type of CF therapy to treat the root cause of the disease rather than the symptoms. Although costly, these therapies have made a large impact on market value.

Perspectives on UnitedHealth/Diplomat Deal

January 9, 2020

Diplomat Pharmacy, Inc., which has been in a tailspin amid mounting financial losses, agreed to a deal with UnitedHealth Group on Dec. 9 that will see the larger firm’s OptumRx division purchase the midsized specialty pharmacy provider/PBM, AIS Health reported.

Diplomat Pharmacy, Inc., which has been in a tailspin amid mounting financial losses, agreed to a deal with UnitedHealth Group on Dec. 9 that will see the larger firm’s OptumRx division purchase the midsized specialty pharmacy provider/PBM, AIS Health reported.

Diplomat’s difficulties began to come into focus earlier this year, when the firm disclosed customer losses in its PBM business and “increased competitive pressure in the specialty market.” In August, Diplomat said it was “reviewing strategic alternatives” to maximize shareholder value. Then on Dec. 9, UnitedHealth disclosed that it agreed to pay $4 per share for Diplomat’s outstanding stock and assume its debt. Equities analysts noted that Diplomat’s stock was trading at $5.81 as of market close on the Friday before the transaction was unveiled.

Adam Fein, Ph.D., CEO of Pembroke Consulting, Inc.’s Drug Channels Institute, says that “the specialty pharmacy market is reaching maturity, as PBMs and insurers dominate specialty drug dispensing channels.” Diplomat, he says, “was unable to navigate the industry’s evolution.”

“Diplomat’s sale at a bargain basement price signals that the shakeout is underway,” Fein adds. “Fewer new specialty pharmacies are starting up, the bigger companies are getting acquired, and market share is concentrating further with the biggest players.”

Ashraf Shehata, KPMG’s national sector leader for health care and life sciences, says that the purchase of Diplomat comes as the rivalry is intensifying between UnitedHealth and its two big consolidated rivals, CVS Health Corp. and Cigna Corp.

Now that those companies have completed major transactions to assemble their assets — with CVS buying health insurer Aetna and Cigna acquiring the PBM Express Scripts — “we’re kind of seeing what I call the second phase right now of the competition really heating up between the big players,” he says.

Growth continues to be the “name of the game” for those three companies, Shehata says, but it’s difficult to come by in an industry that’s already so consolidated. Because of that, “now you might see some growth on the edges” in the same vein as the UnitedHealth/Diplomat deal, he adds.