Though the two major transactions that upended the PBM landscape — Cigna Corp. buying Express Scripts Holding Co. and CVS Health Corp. acquiring Aetna Inc. — have already taken place, that doesn't mean the sector won't see more changes this year, industry experts tell AIS Health.

"The market is evolving," says Brian Anderson, a principal with Milliman, Inc. The year 2020 will be marked by a presidential election and significant price pressure on manufacturers, along with pharmacies trying to retain their margin, he adds, "so it's going to be a really wild year."

The business arm of the Navajo Nation plans to contract with Molina Healthcare, Inc., to offer Medicaid managed care as part of a partnership between New Mexico, tribal officials and the insurer, AIS Health reported.

The program would be the first-ever Medicaid managed care program dedicated solely to the health care, cultural needs and geographic needs of native populations living in the Navajo Nation, according to Molina.

The first targeted therapy to treat pain crises in people with sickle cell disease presents a "welcome" new option that payers likely will embrace, a PBM head tells AIS Health. While the drug's manufacturer cites "positive" early discussions with payers on it, some experts note the lifetime treatment — via a monthly intravenous infusion — is costly: around $100,000 annually.

On Nov. 15, the FDA approved Novartis' Adakveo (crizanlizumab-tmca), a treatment to fight the underlying cause and reduce the frequency of vaso-occlusive crisis, described as a common and painful complication of sickle cell disease. It is approved for patients ages 16 and older with the genetic blood disorder.

For health insurers, there's a lot to like in a spending package passed by Congress to avoid a government shutdown.

One of the two measures that make up the $1.4 trillion spending package will completely repeal the long-reviled health insurer fee (HIF) starting in 2021, which will especially help insurers in the Medicare Advantage business. The legislation also includes two provisions to that could stabilize the Affordable Care Act exchanges by thwarting any attempts to ban silver loading or auto-reenrollment, AIS Health reported.

Despite Medicare Advantage insurers' enthusiasm for increased flexibility in allowable supplemental benefits and a slew of recent plan press releases touting goodies such as pest control and "Papa Pals" for the 2020 plan year, uptake of more "resource intensive" benefits geared toward seriously ill seniors remains relatively modest, according to a new report from the Duke Margolis Center for Health Policy.

The December report, "Improving Serious Illness Care in Medicare Advantage: New Regulatory Flexibility for Supplemental Benefits," showed that a total of 507 standard MA plans in 2019 offered one of five types of benefits addressing serious illness, accounting for roughly 11% of the approximately 4,500 standard MA plans in 2019, AIS Health reported. By contrast, 377 in 2020 offered at least one of the five benefits highlighted in the report, while no plans in 2019 offered more than one of these benefits. But that drop was mainly driven by one major carrier abandoning its caregiver support benefit for 2020. Meanwhile, about 175 plans offered at least two of these types of these benefits, according to Robert Saunders, research director and one of the report's authors.

Under a value-based contracting agreement believed to be the first of its kind, UPMC Health Plan will receive discounts for two Biogen Inc. multiple sclerosis (MS) drugs — Tecfidera (dimethyl fumarate) and Avonex (interferon beta-1a) — based on patient-reported measures of disability progression. The agreement is also based on research with a panel of key MS stakeholders who identified the most meaningful outcomes in relapsing forms of MS, AIS Health reported.

UPMC's Center for Value-Based Pharmacy Initiatives led the research and developed the value-based contract.

With an eye on reducing spending and improving care among members with hemophilia, Highmark Inc. will launch a comprehensive program focused on the condition on Jan. 1. The health plan will partner exclusively with three companies — Option Care Health, Inc., Soleo Health and the Hemophilia Center of Western Pennsylvania — on the initiative, which has the potential to improve member care, reduce costs and cut down on fraud, waste and abuse, AIS Health reported.

Highmark chose hemophilia to focus on for a few reasons, says Sean Burke, manager of specialty pharmacy services at the plan. "We have a pretty comparatively high population" of people with hemophilia, and "clients were coming to us" for effective management strategies. New therapies — as well as a crowded pipeline — mean there is "a big opportunity to potentially save money."