Drug Channels delivers timely analysis and provocative opinions from Adam J. Fein, Ph.D., the country's foremost expert on pharmaceutical economics and the drug distribution system. Drug Channels reaches an engaged, loyal and growing audience of more than 100,000 subscribers and followers. Learn more...
Today’s guest post comes from Kevin Kettler, President of CoverMyMeds.
Kevin asks: What if there were no barriers across the therapy access and reimbursement process? In his view, eliminating barriers requires a combination of expert insight, actionable data, and simplification of the providers' experiences.
Today, we examine how manufacturers’ specialty networks contribute to this concentration. In DCI’s exclusive analysis below, we show that specialty pharmacies affiliated with pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) play an outsized role in manufacturer-designated dispensing networks.
A typical network contains about five specialty pharmacies—but one in three specialty products with a manufacturer-designated network contains only a single specialty pharmacy. In those exclusive networks, independent and smaller specialty pharmacies are the big winners.
Read on for DCI’s updated profile of specialty networks—and ponder why smaller pharmacies are winning the battle for exclusive networks.
As you might expect, we will hit Vegas in true Drug Channels style. Stop by booth #1801 for fun and games:
Partake in a special in-person Ask Me Anything with Adam (#AMAWA) session with DCI president Adam J. Fein, Ph.D.! The AMAWA session will start on Monday, April 29, at 4:30 p.m. (Bring your phone if you want a selfie!)
Adam won’t be speaking at Asembia this year, so be sure to visit booth #1801 on Monday afternoon to get his hot take on whatever topic is vexing you.
Spin the Drug Channels Wheel O’ Fun and win fabulous prizes!
Meet Bar Stern, DCI’s newest and most bearded team member!
Today’s guest post comes from Jim Sheninger, Pharmacy Strategy Officer at GoodRx.
Jim describes GoodRx's emerging pharmacy contracting strategies. In addition to working through pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), GoodRx now also contracts directly with Walgreens, CVS, and other national and regional pharmacies. These direct agreements are based on acqusition cost, which helps pharmacies stabilize gross margins while still providing low pricing for consumers.
To learn more about GoodRx and its pharmacy partnerships, reach out tonetwork@goodrx.com.
Drug Channels Institute’s (DCI’s) latest analysis finds that participants in the specialty pharmacy market continue to get more diverse—although revenues remain highly concentrated.
We have identified nearly 1,800 dispensing sites with specialty pharmacy accreditation—about 40% of which are owned by hospitals, physician practices, and other healthcare providers.
Alas, specialty pharmacies owned by the three largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) have the most brass in their pocket, as they accounted for two-thirds of prescription revenues from pharmacy-dispensed specialty drugs.
Read on for DCI’s latest overview of the 2023 marketplace and revenues of the biggest market participants, along with key specialty pharmacy trends.
Today’s guest post comes from Jessica Lens, Chief Patient Experience Officer at CareMetx.
Jessica discusses the challenges of patient nonadherence. She then outlines how manufacturers can build adherence into their patient services program to increase patient engagement.
Three is still the magic number for pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs).
For 2023, nearly 80% of all equivalent prescription claims were processed by three companies: the Caremark business of CVS Health, the Express Scripts business of Cigna, and the Optum Rx business of UnitedHealth Group.
Read on for Drug Channels Institute’s (DCI’s) latest market share figures, along with a preview of the industry changes that will shift these shares over the next few years.
I am pleased to announce the inaugural Drug Channels Leadership Forum! This unique, new event will be held from March 17 to 19, 2025, at the Turnberry Resort and Spa in Miami.
The Leadership Forum will be an executive gathering where drug channel leaders can network and discuss key issues and challenges facing the commercial healthcare system. We intend to bring together people from the entire drug channel: pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), health plans, insurers, and plan sponsors, wholesalers and distributors, pharmacies, providers, buying groups, government officials, and more.
I’m personally assembling the agenda, which will be a mix of one-on-one fireside chats with industry leaders combined with hard-hitting, topical panel discussions. And of course, I'll be there to moderate the entire event and lead the fireside chats. Thanks to DCI’s partnership with HMP Global, we can bring this novel event to the drug channels community.
It's time for Drug Channels’ annual reality check on U.S. drug pricing.
For 2023, brand-name drugs’ list prices again grew at mid-single-digit rates. However, net prices dropped for an unprecedented sixth consecutive year. What’s more, after adjusting for overall inflation, brand-name drug net prices plunged by more than 7%. Details below.
Employers, health plans, and PBMs determine whether patients share in this ongoing deflation. Meanwhile, these data challenge drug pricing flat earthers (#DPFE) who remain committed to a false narrative of “skyrocketing” drug prices.
As I discuss below, manufacturers will face ongoing pressure on net prices from both commercial and government payers. They will also have new incentives to limit growth in list prices—and will even reduce list prices on certain drugs (as some are already doing).
Perhaps these factors will finally start to deflate the gross-to-bubble and reduce its negative effect on patients and public policy discussions. Hope has to triumph over experience eventually, doesn’t it?
As many of you know, hospitals and health systems have emerged as significant participants in the specialty pharmacy industry. A new American Society of Hospital Pharmacists (ASHP) survey provides fresh insights into these specialty pharmacies.
Below, I review key findings on the economics and operations of these specialty pharmacies. I then highlight how hospitals steer prescriptions to their internal specialty pharmacies.
As you’ll see, hospitals use network strategies that would make any pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) proud—especially when combined with the prescribing activities of hospital-employed physicians.
The 2024 formularies described below should boost biosimilar adoption. As a new Biosimilar Council report shows, Humira retained 99% of market share in late 2023, despite being more expensive than its biosimilars.
For 2024, the three largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs)—Caremark (CVS Health), Express Scripts (Cigna), and OptumRx (United Health Group)—have again each excluded 600 or more drugs from their standard formularies. You can find our updated counting below.
This year, Humira and its 14 biosimilars will provide the most intriguing formulary drama. Unfortunately, the gross-to-net bubble will remain a fixture for this category, despite a price war led by almost half of the biosimilars. CVS Health will lean into the craziness with an unusual Humira strategy.*
There are also unusual formulary developments for insulin products, many of which experienced massive list price cuts for 2024.
Read on for my deep dive into these two therapeutic categories. I also highlight recent research that raises troubling questions about the patient impact of these ever-growing exclusion lists. As always, I welcome your comments below or on LinkedIn.
Is the world ready for new ways to price pharmacy and pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) services? CVS Health thinks so, as evidenced by two new initiatives that it announced yesterday. Below you'll find details and links to source documents.
I commend CVS Health for attempting to address key economic challenges facing the retail pharmacy industry and for tackling the hidden complexities of PBM pricing models. As I explain, a shift to cost-based pharmacy reimbursement could stabilize CVS Health’s retail business by improving its dispensing profits.
Nonetheless, CVS Pharmacy’s cost-plus model has some notable shortcomings for plan sponsors and is far less “disruptive” than the company would like us to believe. Mark Cuban should be flattered—but not fearful.
What's more, other large pharmacies will likely follow CVS with attempts to force payers and PBMs to accept some form of cost-plus reimbursement. (Et tu, Walgreens?) If that happens, expect higher prescriptions prices, less efficiency, and a slowdown in the inevitable retail pharmacy shakeout.
Consider two apparently unrelated drug channel anomalies:
In McKesson’s 2023 fiscal year, CVS bought $75 billion in pharmaceuticals from McKesson’s wholesale business—a jump of more than 35% compared with the previous year.
Despite skyrocketing sales for anti-obesity GLP-1 drugs, many retail pharmacies are losing money on every prescription.
The common factor behind these two disparate situations: Pharmaceutical wholesalers’ unusual pricing for brand-name drugs sold to pharmacies, hospitals, and other buyers. Below, I walk through the economic fundamentals to help you understand another obscure aspect of our opaque drug pricing system.
