Express Scripts said Thursday it will continue to look for additional acquisitions to bolster its business amid a turbulent period for pharmacy benefit managers and increasing competition from PBM rivals.
Express Scripts will soon close on its $3.6 billion acquisition of privately held medical benefits management firm eviCore. It’s been a deal, however, that has been overshadowed somewhat by rival CVS Health’s proposed $69 billion acquisition of Aetna, the nation’s No. 3 health insurer.
But Express Scripts CEO Tim Wentworth told analysts its employer and health plan clients like what they see in his company’s portfolio and new business the PBM is attractive. And Wentworth’s optimism is unchanged even after CVS, which owns the rival Caremark PBM, announced plans to buy Aetna.
“It boosts our optimism, but we were feeling pretty darn good already,” Wentworth told analysts in a conference call Thursday morning to discuss Express Scripts’ 2018 financial guidance.
Increasingly, employers and health insurers are looking for ways to provide the best outcome and move away from fee-for-service medicine that emphasizes volume of care delivered. When it comes to prescription drugs, it’s not always the case that the patient is getting the best drug to produce the best outcome, so Express Scripts has said adding eviCore’s services to make sure that can happen more in the future.
In buying eviCore, Express Scripts is getting a firm that manages medical benefits for 100 million people . Express Scripts and its rivals including UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx are working on ways to bring value-based care models to prescription drugs in managing patient care.
Date: Dec 14, 2017