AP Photo Medco’s automated pharmacy is shown in Willingboro, N.J. Express Scripts Inc. and Medco Health Solutions Inc., plan to combine in a $29.1 billion deal
The top two U.S. companies managing prescription drug benefits are uniting in a $29.1 billion deal they say will help achieve key goals of the health care overhaul: reining in costs and improving patients’ health.
Express Scripts Inc. announced an agreement Thursday to buy larger rival Medco Health Solutions Inc. Together, they would handle the prescriptions of about 135 million people, more than one in three Americans.
That will give them even more clout in demanding discounts from drugmakers, who are dealing with falling or stagnant revenue as an unprecedented number of blockbuster drugs taken daily by millions is getting cheaper generic competition.
Pharmacy benefit managers process mail-order prescriptions and handle bills for prescriptions filled at retail pharmacies, acting as middlemen between employers offering prescription drug benefits and drugmakers.
They also hold down costs by extracting discounts and rebates from drugmakers, using tiered copayments that nudge patients to buy generics or the lowest-cost brand names, and reminding patients to take medicines as scheduled to
limit costly complications.
Together, Express Scripts and Medco handled more than 1.7 billion prescriptions in 2010 and reported almost $110 billion in revenue, although Medco recently lost several contracts covering millions of people.
Read more…