Radar on Drug Benefits

The FDA on Aug. 19 approved the first and only rapid-acting oral drug for major depressive disorder (MDD), a treatment that is being hailed by its manufacturer as a “potential game-changer” for people struggling with the difficult-to-treat condition. 

One pharma analyst expressed optimism about the drug’s ability to disrupt the MDD treatment market. However, experts from the PBM sector predict that payers may not embrace the drug warmly given how many generics are available to treat depression. 

The federal government will stop purchasing COVID-19 vaccines and therapeutics as soon as this fall, Biden administration officials said recently — meaning payers will have to procure vaccines and treatments like any other commercial pharmaceutical product. Health care experts tell AIS Health, a division of MMIT, that the move is likely to make vaccines and therapeutics less accessible and introduce dispensing costs that could drive up premiums. 

The Biden administration is transitioning away from the “acute emergency phase where the U.S. government is buying the vaccines, buying the treatments, buying the diagnostic tests. We need to get out of that business over the long run,” White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Ashish Jha, M.D., said during an Aug. 16 event organized by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.  

After the FDA approved Zynteglo (betibeglogene autotemcel) on Aug. 17, the gene therapy’s manufacturer, bluebird bio, Inc., announced the drug would have a $2.8 million wholesale acquisition cost (WAC). That is the highest WAC for a drug hitting the market in the U.S.  

Zynteglo is indicated as a potential cure for patients with transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia, a rare disorder caused by genetic mutations in cells that carry oxygen throughout the body. Such patients typically require red blood cell transfusions every two to five weeks. 

In 2021, prescription drugs accounted for a median of 21% of large employers’ health care costs, and a full 100% of firms said they were concerned about prescription drug spending trends, according to the Business Group on Health’s 2023 Large Employers’ Health Care Strategy and Plan Design Survey. 

Yet the rising cost of specialty medications — which are often covered by medical rather than pharmacy benefits — has forced companies to think differently about how to curtail drug spending, the organization found. According to the survey, specialty medications account for 56% of all pharmacy spending by polled employers.