CVS Health's prescription drug trend falls to 5%

WOONSOCKET, R.I. – CVS Health on Tuesday announced that prescription drug trend, a measure of growth in prescription spending, for CVS Health pharmacy benefit management clients dropped to 5% in 2015 from a high of 11.8% in 2014. While the trend drivers – including brand, specialty and generic price inflation – were similar to what was seen in 2014, CVS Health’s pharmacy management strategies were successful in mitigating the impact of rising drug costs. 

 

Price inflation in non-specialty brands outweighed all other trend drivers.  As a driver, specialty overall, including the impact of new launches and increases in price and utilization, had less impact than inflation of brands in high volume categories such as drugs used to treat diabetes.  

 

“The high cost of drugs that our clients are struggling with hurts everyone,” stated Troyen Brennan, chief medical officer and EVP CVS Health. “Millions of people depend on us for the prescriptions they need to stay healthy. At CVS Health, we work to help patients avoid unnecessarily expensive medications as part of our focus on making prescriptions affordable.”

 

On average, CVS Caremark clients utilizing the company’s value formulary in 2015 saved $20 million or more depending on the number of plan members they support. In addition, recently published research from the CVS Health Research Institute showed that along with cost savings, more selective formulary design improves medication adherence and health outcomes. 

 

“The double-digit drug trend increases we were experiencing in 2014 resulted in a call to action from our clients to help them ensure their plan members could access the medications they need to stay healthy, at an affordable price,” said Jonathan Roberts, president CVS Caremark and EVP CVS Health. “Our programs were effective and successful, as shown by the dramatic drop in overall drug trend last year and moving forward we will continue to focus on identifying key drug trend drivers in real time and quickly deliver flexible solutions to our clients that result in additional cost savings for clients while improving the health of their plan members.”