Market Access 101: Key Factors in Medical Benefit Contracting
Welcome back to our Market Access 101 blog series, which began with the basics of market access and covered how to improve formulary placement and secure coverage under the medical benefit. In this post, we’ll dive deeper into the medical benefit, explaining how payer/PBM contracting works—and why it’s increasingly necessary. Essentially, all pharma companies want […]
Key Trends in Medical Benefit Contracting
This article was originally published in Drug Channels. In recent years, the rising cost of specialty pharmaceuticals has motivated payers to implement tighter restrictions and seek both traditional and value-based contracts with manufacturers. As manufacturers are already contracting with GPOs, distribution networks and medical practices, most would prefer to avoid contracting with payers and PBMs […]
Removing Access Barriers for Long-Acting Injectables
The past few years have seen an increase in the number of long-acting injectable (LAI) therapies for a variety of disorders and diseases, including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and HIV. These LAI antipsychotics and antiretroviral therapies include brand-name drugs such as Invega Sustenna (paliperidone palmitate by Jannsen), Abilify Maintena (aripirazole by Otsuka), and Cabenuva (cabotegravir/rilpirivine by […]
The Problem with Copay Adjustment and Alternate Funding Programs
Payers’ use of copay adjustment programs has exploded over the past few years, and interest in them remains high. In addition, payers are now looking to bring down their drug spend by adopting newer strategies offered by companies with alternate funding programs. While many manufacturers are pushing back against these copay adjustment and specialty carve-out […]
How Will the Launch of Humira Biosimilars Impact Patients, Payers and IDNs?
Across indications, biosimilar uptake is rapidly accelerating, with the number of biologics facing biosimilar competition more than doubling by 2026. This year’s impending launch of adalimumab biosimilars will serve as a case study for manufacturers, who will be studying the market’s response. Humira biosimilars have great potential to disrupt immunology market baskets, especially if multiple […]
The Evolution of Medical Benefit Contracting: How Pharma Can Prepare
This article was originally published in Drug Channels. Given the growth of specialty pharmaceuticals, manufacturers will need to develop more aggressive contracting strategies to secure optimal market access for their medical benefit drugs. Shifting market dynamics, driven in part by the influx of lower cost biosimilars on the pharmacy benefit, will require pharma companies to […]
New HCPCS Codes for Generics: What Payers and Manufacturers Should Know to Ensure Accurate Reimbursement
As if medical billing and coding wasn’t challenging enough, 2023 brings a new layer of complexity: the establishment of unique HCPCS codes for generic drugs. Specifically, the new codes affect generics approved under the FDA’s 505(b)(2) new drug application (NDA) and biologics license application (BLA) pathways. In its Q3 2022 HCPCS Coding Cycle documentation, CMS […]
Rebate Leakage: How Pharma Companies Can Prevent a Multimillion-Dollar Problem
Every consumer is familiar with the rebates one may get when purchasing a product or service. However, if the rebate was invalid or was not submitted properly, the money does not always get back to the consumer. A similar issue of ineligible rebates and incurred costs also consistently occurs in the pharmaceutical industry, but on […]
What Manufacturers Need to Know About Alternative Payment Models
Much has been said about healthcare’s shift from a fee-for-service model to a value-based care (VBC) model—and for good reason. With 50% of clinical interventions resulting in unknown effectiveness, and 20-40% of health expenditure wasted on unproven or unnecessary treatments, VBC models can help reduce costs and inefficiencies for patients, providers and manufacturers. Yet while […]
Payers Are Using NDC Mandates, but Are They Doing Enough?
The drug development pipeline is dominated by specialty therapies, more and more of which are being managed under the medical benefit. Therefore, payers will increasingly need to manage those drugs themselves, given that the PBMs they’d normally rely on don’t process these sorts of claims. As a result, payers are looking to better manage medical […]