US drug benefit managers clamp down on speciality pharmacies

Los Angeles

IN recent days, the largest US managers of private prescription drug benefits have cut off at least eight pharmacies that work closely with drugmakers, intensifying scrutiny of a system that helps inflate drug prices, officials at the benefit managers told Reuters.

The terminations come from payers who together manage drug benefits for more than 100 million Americans, and they follow disclosures by Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc in late October that one pharmacy accounted for about 7 per cent of its sales. "What we had not been aware of, until really the last year, was these type of pharmacies that have a really high proportion of sales from a drugmaker and it was not out in the open," Everett Neville, senior vice-president of supply chain at Express Scripts Holding Co, said in an interview.