After Hep C, Express Scripts Aims to Influence Oncology Drug Costs

Express Scripts Holding Co., which this year forced price concessions from makers of $1000-a-day hepatitis C medicines, has set its sights on $37 billion in US spending on cancer medications. Its goal is to start influencing the drugs’ costs as soon as next year.

Express Scripts is the country’s biggest manager of prescription drug benefits. However, its reach doesn’t extend to many injected or infused cancer drugs administered in doctors’ offices and hospitals, not dispensed in retail pharmacies. The St. Louis-based company’s ambition is to change that, including eventually for new drugs that trigger the body’s own immune system to attack tumors and can cost $150,000.

“We want to be able to start influencing the market by 2016,” said Steve Miller, MD, Express Scripts’ chief medical officer, in an interview at Bloomberg’s offices in New York. “We are accumulating all the keys to the puzzle to be able to do this.”

Link to the complete article on Bloomberg: http://bloom.bg/1xJ5NIw