Cigna Is Latest Payer to Nudge Patients Toward Private-Label Stelara Biosimilar

  • May 22, 2025

    When deciding how to cover Stelara (ustekinumab) and its recent spate of follow-on products, prominent PBMs and payers are favoring Biocon Biologics Ltd.’s Yesintek and their own private-label biosimilars — including one that has been the target of litigation.  

    Cigna Healthcare, a division of The Cigna Group, on May 15 issued a new drug-coverage policy that prefers branded Stelara, Yesintek, Alvotech/Teva’s Selarsdi and ustekinumab-ttwe, a biosimilar manufactured by Cigna subsidiary Quallent Pharmaceuticals. 

    As nonpreferred products, Cigna’s new policy lists Formycon/Fresenius’ Otulfi, Celltrion’s Steqeyma and Sandoz/Samsung’s Pyzchiva. Regarding Pyzchiva, the policy notes that patients will instead be “directed to ustekinumab-ttwe,” Quallent’s unbranded version of the drug. 

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  • Leslie Small

    Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.

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