Novartis Reaches Entresto Pay-for-Performance Deals With Cigna, Aetna
February 09 2016 - 12:57PM
Dow Jones News
By Tess Stynes
Cigna Corp. and Aetna Inc. have reached agreements for heart
drug Entresto with Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG that tie pricing to
patient outcomes.
Such pay-for-performance deals, which set pricing on certain
drugs based on how well they work for certain patients, have been
spurred by concerns about increasingly high prices for some
medicines.
A Novartis spokesman confirmed Tuesday that pharmaceuticals
division head David R. Epstein was referring to Cigna and Aetna
when he said Novartis reached performance-based deals with two
health insurers on the drugmaker's fourth-quarter earnings
conference call last month.
Health insurer Cigna said in a news release Monday said its
pay-for-performance deal with Novartis for Entresto primarily links
the financial terms to a reduction in the portion of its customers
that are hospitalized for heart failure.
An Aetna spokesman couldn't immediately be reached to
comment.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Entresto, a
tablet taken twice daily, in July. A clinical trial showed it
reduced the risk of death and hospitalization from heart failure
versus another drug, enalapril.
Entresto's U.S. list price, also known as its wholesale
acquisition cost, is $12.50 a day, or about $4,560 a year per
patient.
Pay-for-performance contracts often involve tracking certain
health measures and outcomes in specific patients. The cost and
complexity of such tracking can offset the benefits and the number
of such deals in the U.S. to date has been relatively small.
Write to Tess Stynes at tess.stynes@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
February 09, 2016 12:42 ET (17:42 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Novartis (NYSE:NVS)
Historical Stock Chart
From Mar 2024 to Apr 2024
Novartis (NYSE:NVS)
Historical Stock Chart
From Apr 2023 to Apr 2024
