Drug Channels News Roundup, September 2015: CVS Health, AmerisourceBergen, and Generic Inflation

Fall is here! Curl up with your extra hot grande Pumpkin Spice Whatever and check out this cornucopia of stories harvested from the Drug Channels crop:

• A neat profile of Helena Foulkes, president of CVS/pharmacy (and future CEO of CVS Health?)

• An interesting interview with AmerisourceBergen CEO Steve Collis

• The other NCPA deconstructs the supply chain factors behind generic drug inflation

Plus, The Onion reports on a highly innovative new health benefit plan.

P.S. For my daily harvest of interesting news stories, follow @DrugChannels on Twitter.

The Change Agent Inside CVS, Fortune
This Fortune article provides an insightful profile of Helena Foulkes, president of CVS/pharmacy, as well as a handy history of CVS. It’s a must-read for understanding CVS’s front-end strategies. Here’s a neat chart from the article that shows just how big CVS Health has become:

[Click to Enlarge]

A Conversation with Steve Collis, AmerisourceBergen, Pharmaceutical Commerce
In this worthwhile interview, Steve Collis, president and CEO of AmerisourceBergen, discusses the company’s specialty business, its global ambitions, its BluePoint private label, and more.

What Is Increasing the Cost of Generic Drugs? (Part I: The Supply Chain), National Center for Policy Analysis
Here’s an interesting white paper by Devon Herrick of the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA)—not to be confused with the National Community Pharmacists Association. The paper provides a useful summary of supply chain and channel culprits that could be driving recent generic inflation. (See my latest analysis here: The Retail Generic Drug Inflation Slowdown: It’s Real.) The paper makes pro-market arguments for lowering drug prices, including multiple recommendations that the other NCPA certainly won’t like.

Company’s HR Manager Really Pushing Infinite-Deductible Health Care Plan, The Onion
Very funny…but for how long?