2020 Year in Review: PBMs Integrated, Expanded Offerings in ’20 Amid Uncertainty

In 2020, the PBM industry continued to deepen its integration with other industry players, a trend that experts say is likely to continue in coming years. Meanwhile, PBMs faced rising regulatory scrutiny and saw their mail-order business lines experience a boom in consumer demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The PBM space has consolidated to the point that five firms — UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx, CVS Health Corp.’s Caremark, Cigna Corp.’s Express Scripts, Anthem Inc.’s IngenioRx, Humana Inc.’s Humana Pharmacy Solutions, and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield affiliate-owned Prime Therapeutics LLC — manage the lion’s share of the pharmacy benefits offered to U.S. health plan members. Beyond their deepening integration with the payers that own them, these firms are working to expand their data and direct-to-consumer operations.

© 2025 MMIT
Peter Johnson

Peter Johnson

Peter has worked as a journalist since 2011 and has covered health care since 2020. At AIS Health, Peter covers trends in finance, business and policy that affect the health insurance and pharma sectors. For Health Plan Weekly, he covers all aspects of the U.S. health insurance sector, including employer-sponsored insurance, Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage and the Affordable Care Act individual marketplaces. In Radar on Drug Benefits, Peter covers the operations of (and conflicts between) pharmacy benefit managers and pharmaceutical manufacturers, with a particular focus on pricing dynamics and market access. Before joining AIS Health, Peter covered transportation, public safety and local government for various outlets in Seattle, his hometown and current place of residence. He graduated with a B.A. from Colby College.

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