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Express Scripts' New Program to Lower Diabetes Care Costs

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Pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts Holding Company has launched the Diabetes Care Value Program.

As part of the Express Scripts SafeGuardRx suite of pharmacy solutions, this program aims to improve pharmacy care while controlling plan costs for patients suffering from diabetes.

The program will be implemented in Mar 2017 and it comprises a network of preferred pharmacies.

With strong criticism being voiced against high prices of specialty drugs, the focus is on better management of healthcare costs as consumers are becoming increasingly proactive about healthcare decisions. Through the program, Express Scripts guarantees per-patient spending caps, which will lead to participating plans experiencing an average increase in diabetes drug spend in 2017.

Express Scripts will assume the financial risk for drug spending in excess of the caps in order to protect its clients from higher costs and budget uncertainty. Members of participating plans will receive 90-day supplies of their diabetes maintenance medications from more than 10,000 pharmacies across the U.S.

Launch of the new program will broaden Express Scripts’s range of services. We remind investors that the company’s SafeGuardRx suite of pharmacy solutions was designed to better manage specialty spending, thereby establishing a higher standard for patient outcome. The portfolio also includes the Hepatitis Cure Value Program, the Cholesterol Care Value Program, the Oncology Care Value Program and the Express Scripts Inflation Protection Program.

Concurrently, Express Scripts announced that its 2017 National Preferred Formulary will include multiple preferred basal insulins. The company plans to enlist Eli Lilly and Company’s (LLY - Free Report) follow-on insulin Basaglar (assuming market entry later this year) as a preferred product for the National Preferred Formulary, alongside the originator product, Lantus.

Express Scripts currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). A couple of better-ranked stocks in the health care sector include ANI Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (ANIP - Free Report) and Actelion Ltd. . Both the stocks sport a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy).

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