SAN FRANCISCO—Pharmacy benefit managers have touted the coming wave of biosimilar drugs as presenting a major opportunity to drive down drug prices, and Cigna, the parent company of Express Scripts, is no exception.
In a session Tuesday afternoon at the J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, Cigna CEO David Cordani said these products represent a significant way to make a big social impact.
"Big picture: This is a tremendous social opportunity to create some more affordability," Cordani said.
About 7% of specialty drugs currently have a biosimilar product on the market in the U.S., he said, and that is expected to increase by 3.5 times over the next several years. Biosimilars open the door to competition for some of the most popular—and costly—therapies on the market, such as AbbVie's Humira.
Humira, an immunotherapy for a slew of conditions, is one of the most popular drugs in the world. It accounts for $20 billion per year in sales, according to estimates from Optum Rx, another major PBM.
Express Scripts and Optum both said they plan to add biosimilars for Humira to their formularies this year. CVS Caremark, the other remaining PBM that dominates the market, is weighing similar moves.
Cordani said Evernorth views 2023 as a transitional year for the biosimilar market as releases ramp up, with the larger changes to be felt in 2024 and beyond.
The challenge will be finding ways to support patients through the transition and making it clear to them the benefits of switching to a biosimilar, he said. Making that pitch is a little more difficult than helping the member switch to a generic version of the medication they take, Cordani said.
The key is makings sure the right drug is connected to the right patient at the right time, he said.
"This is a really important societal win in terms of getting higher adoption of the biosimilars," Cordani said.
Beyond the work at Express Scripts, Cigna views Evernorth as a critical growth engine for the company broadly. Cordani said that's built on two key pillars: data analytics and clinical know-how. Assets under the Evernorth umbrella include eviCore, which provides data analytics, and MDLive, a telehealth provider.
Combining capabilities like this enables Evernorth to go beyond providing a point solution to a client but to offering more of a wraparound experience that tackles multiple parts of the care continuum. Evernorth works closely with Cigna's insurance arm, but it is payer-agnostic.
"When I think about the competitive assets of the franchise, there’s two pieces we pull upon day in, day out: deep clinical expertise and data," Cordani said.