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CVS Health Grows in PBM With Rheumatoid Arthritis Program

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Observing the growing awareness on Rheumatoid Arthritis (RA) worldwide and with the industry introducing advanced treatment options, CVS Health Corporation (CVS - Free Report) has recently launched a program on RA. Known as Transform Rheumatoid Arthritis Care, this newfangled initiative claims to be helpful for the company’s pharmacy benefit management (PBM) clients for better care and cost management of RA.

Per management, this latest RA offering will be accretive to the company’s condition-specific, highly personalized Transform Care programs. This will further add value-based management strategies including outcomes based contracts and indication-based formulary for autoimmune conditions to CVS Health's integrated pharmacy care model.

Notably, RA is an autoimmune disease causing chronic inflammation of the joints and other areas of the body (as per medicinenet). CVS Health has stated that this complex physical condition is now a top driver of specialty drug trend for PBM clients. On a positive note, the cost and utilization of drugs to treat RA are a top drug trend and spend driver, accounting for nearly half of overall specialty drug trends.

Per CVS Health, this new multi-pronged approach propels a trend guarantee based on the program's ability to improve both clinical care and cost management for RA. Besides, this integrated pharmacy care model will help the company provide personalized, whole-patient support through specialty pharmacy and embedded AccordantCare nurses.

The Transform RA Care program is aiding an appropriate use of lower-cost therapies through pharmacy network and utilization management tools along with value-based management strategies. Per the company’s prediction, clients enrolled in the Transform RA Care program could expect to see up to 5% savings on their annual RA drugs spend. 

Significantly, the burden of RA is considerable. Per the Global Data report, the RA space across eight major markets of the United States, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, the UK, Japan and Australia is set to expand to around $28.5 billion by 2025 from $19.5 billion in 2015, representing a CAGR of 3.9%.

According to CVS Health, RA is the second most common form of arthritis, impacting more than 1.5 million people in the United States. Further, the treatment process is complex. Statistics show that approximately a quarter of patients on an autoimmune drug discontinues the therapy within 180 days, which may lead to poor health outcomes as well as higher costs for payors and members.

We believe this latest program from the CVS Health stable will acquire a huge customer acceptance. In fact it effectively targets all the complications of RA treatment procedure.

Share Price Performance

 

 

This leading provider of integrated services across the entire spectrum of pharmacy care has been outperforming the broader industry over the past six months. The stock has inched up 1.9% against the industry’s 2.2% decline.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

CVS Health carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). Some better-ranked stocks in the broader medical space are Bio-Rad Laboratories Inc. (BIO - Free Report) , Neogen Corporation (NEOG - Free Report) and Humana Inc. (HUM - Free Report) , each sporting a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank Stocks Here.

Bio-Rad has a massive projected growth rate of 141.46% for the first quarter of 2018. The stock has outperformed the broader industry, climbing 14.2% in the last three months.

Neogen has a long-term projected growth rate of 15%. In the last six months, the stock has rallied 21.6%, surpassing the industry’s gain.

Humana has an expected growth rate of 15.6% in the first quarter of 2018. Over the last 30 days, the stock has gained 9.7% above the industry’s return.

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