News Briefs
✦ The state budget recently unveiled by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) would delay the state’s move to carve out pharmacy benefits from its Medicaid managed care contracts, Modern Healthcare reported. Instead of starting April 1 of this year, the passed health budget bill would make the change no earlier than April 1, 2023. The New York Health Plan Association has been vocal in its opposition to the move, claiming it could thwart care coordination efforts by plans (RDB 1/28/21, p. 1). Read more at https://bit.ly/2QlSQue.
✦ An analysis by Blues affiliate- owned PBM Prime Therapeutics found that an average course of chimeric antigen receptor T-cell (CAR-T) therapies for B-cell lymphoma cost $700,000, and in some cases exceeded $1 million. The analysis reviewed records from 74 members, and found that 39% of patients did not have a “durable CAR-T response, with chemotherapy being the most [subsequent] common event (30%) and 1 in 20 going on to have a bone marrow transplant.” Read more at https://bit.ly/2QdmJNn.