News Briefs
✦ Express Scripts and Prime Therapeutics LLC unveiled a partnership by which the former will offer the latter services related to retail pharmacy network and drug manufacturer contracts. Through the three-year deal, Express Scripts, a Cigna Corp. subsidiary, will provide pharmacy network development and negotiate with drugmakers for pharmacy benefit drugs on behalf of Prime’s 28 million members, as well as its own 75 million customers. Each company will work independently on managing medical benefit therapies and value-based contracting. In a Jan. 7 Drug Channels blog, Adam Fein, Ph.D., CEO of Drug Channels Institute, a subsidiary of Pembroke Consulting, Inc., maintains that the transaction “has potentially major implications,” as “manufacturers and pharmacies will face the biggest PBM ever.” Contact Prime’s Karen Lyons at klyons@primetherapeutics.com and Cigna’s Will McDowell at William.mcdowell2@cigna.com. Read Fein’s blog at https://bit.ly/36xvnJb.
✦ Prime Therapeutics has entered into an oncology value-based arrangement with Pfizer Inc. “Prime will utilize real-world patient pharmacy data to support a value-based agreement related to patients’ adherence to their cancer treatment,” says that company in a press release. Prime declined to respond to AIS Health questions about the partnership. Contact Prime’s Jenine Anderson at jenine.anderson@primetherapeutics.com.
