Gilead, Anthem, CVS Health sales and marketing update
CVS Health announced that it would give exclusive formulary status to Gilead’s HCV drugs Harvoni ledipasvir/sofosbuvir and Sovaldi sofosbuvir. The deal covers patients with all genotypes of HCV across a broad range of formularies serviced by the pharmacy benefits manager (PBM), including its CVS/Caremark Standard Commercial formulary as well as its state marketplace exchange, Medicare Part D and Medicaid formularies. CVS would not disclose the term of the contract or what discounts or rebates Gilead agreed to in exchange for exclusive status. CVS spokesperson Christine Cramer said the PBM decided to give the Gilead drugs exclusive status after “a thorough evaluation of the existing and new hepatitis C therapies that are now available in the marketplace.”
Separately, Anthem agreed to make Gilead’s Harvoni its preferred drug to treat HCV infection across its employer-based plans. The payer said Harvoni would have Tier 3 or Tier 4 status on these plans and that members would still have access to other HCV medicines, including Viekira Pak paritaprevir/ritonavir/ombitasvir plus dasabuvir from AbbVie Inc. (NYSE:ABBV, Chicago, Ill.), in the case of medical exceptions. Tier 3 or Tier 4 drugs typically require co-insurance where the member pays some proportion of the total drug cost, though Anthem did not disclose the level of cost-sharing for Harvoni. ...