Humana Inc. is the sixth-largest health insurer in the U.S., serving more than 12.8 million lives across most sectors. Originally founded in the 1960s as a chain of nursing homes, the company has a long history in elder care, with nearly 40% of its members enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA). Expounding on this legacy, Humana on April 27 revealed plans to acquire Kindred at Home, a large provider of home health and hospice services. Humana currently has a 40% stake in the company, and plans to leverage the acquisition to improve patient outcomes and satisfaction in in-home settings, according to a press release.

Pharmaceutical manufacturers, which in recent years have addressed social determinants of health (SDoH) via donations to community groups from their foundations, are taking new steps to address health inequities, including more direct partnerships with provider groups and payers, plus initiatives to make clinical trials more diverse.

The pharmaceutical industry has been plagued by a lack of public trust, and various polls have showed mixed results concerning how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted that. The pandemic has posed tremendous challenges for the industry, perhaps most significantly in developing, testing and delivering vaccines. But even though companies have brought vaccines to the market in record time, a lack of trust in the industry still exists, with many people — even health care workers themselves — declining to be vaccinated. However, pharma can take a variety of steps to help rebuild that trust, maintain industry sources.

Although health care utilization started to rebound toward the end of 2020, spending on health care services was down by 1.0% in 2020 compared to 2019, according to a recent analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation. Among health care facilities, outpatient care centers and physicians’ offices saw drops in revenue year-to-date, while revenue for laboratories and nursing homes went up. The analysis also compared health spending in the quarter before, the quarter of and the four quarters following the beginning of economic recessions, and found that the COVID-19 recession is the first of the past five during which health spending has decreased year over year.

As the U.S. surpasses 570,000 deaths from the COVID-19 pandemic, people with cancer continue to unsurprisingly be hesitant to visit a provider office or hospital for treatment. So, Cancer Treatment Centers of America (CTCA) is working with CVS Health to bring therapies into certain patients’ homes, helping keep immunocompromised people safer and allowing them to continue much-needed cancer treatment.

Uber, seeking to expand its prescription delivery business nationwide, has inked a deal with pharmacy home delivery start-up ScriptDrop that makes Uber the default delivery app for a network of grocery store and independent pharmacies that spans 37 states.

In the 2020 Drug Trend Report recently released by Evernorth (see infographic, p. 3), the Cigna Corp. division added yet another chapter to the growing volume of data detailing the profound effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on health care.

In its 2020 Drug Trend Report, Cigna Corp. division Evernorth said total drug costs rose 4% for its commercial plans, including both utilization and unit costs. The COVID-19 pandemic led to an across-the-board decline in the percentage of new medication users as well as improved adherence among people taking medications for chronic conditions. Among the top 15 therapy classes ranked by per-member per-year spend for the commercial plans, inflammatory conditions remained the top of the list, at $241.34 PMPY average spending, followed by diabetes at $145.24.

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, many people — particularly those with certain preexisting conditions such as moderate to severe asthma — are trying to stay home and avoid places where they could be exposed to the virus, including health care provider offices. The FDA’s recent approval of self-administration of Roche Group member Genentech USA, Inc. and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp.’s Xolair (omalizumab) will assist in that effort. Payers and providers expect in-home self-administration to increase this year due to the pandemic, according to Zitter Insights.

Many people taking specialty medications, such as people with cancer, are immunocompromised, and specialty drugs themselves can cause drug-induced immunosuppression. As COVID-19 vaccines roll out, it may be unclear how those products could impact people taking specialty therapies. At least two medical societies, however, have released recommendations around modifications to treatment regimens when a person receives a COVID vaccine, as well as the delay of the vaccine itself. Industry experts say that all stakeholders have a role to play in making sure people getting vaccinated do so in the most effective, safest way possible.