Humana has agreed to join a purchasing group run by rival Cigna in a move that the health insurer says will help drive down its drug costs for its commercial members.
Beginning April 1, Humana will join a Cigna purchasing organization called Ascent Health Services to give it access to
Ascent manages commercial rebates, the payments that drugmakers make to health plans. The agreement covers drug contracting and negotiations for Humana’s commercial business.
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“This arrangement will help us leverage scale and buying power to extract deeper price discounts from drug manufacturers and advance affordability for our customers while at the same time preserve our ability to address their specific clinical needs,” Humana spokeswoman Kelley M. Murphy said in an email.
Commercial medical plans account for only a small portion of overall membership at Humana, which is focused on private
A Cigna spokesman said in an email that the agreement with Humana showed Cigna’s “ability to expand the reach of our best-in-class solutions across the health care system — even with entities traditionally considered competitors — to improve the affordability of health care for more Americans.”
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Cigna and Humana both sell health insurance and other medical services, including pharmacy benefits. Cigna has expanded its footprint in the pharmacy business since its 2018 acquisition of Express Scripts. In 2019, Cigna
Cigna executives have described how working with outside partners like Prime can increase purchasing leverage with drugmakers.
“You get more attention at the table with pharma if you’re representing more lives,” Tim Wentworth, chief executive officer of Cigna’s Evernorth unit, said at a conference in November.
