[Bloomberg] Express Scripts Raises Pressure on Gilead for Drug Price

By Michelle Fay Cortez

April 8, 2014

Express Scripts Holding Co., a pharmacy benefit manager that handles more than 1 billion prescriptions annually in the U.S., is ratcheting up its effort to force Gilead Sciences Inc. (GILD) to cut the $84,000 price of its new hepatitis C pill Sovaldi.

Express Scripts plans to ask its clients, composed of national employers, health insurance plans and government agencies, to join a coalition that would stop using Sovaldi once a rival medicine is approved for the U.S., expected next year, said Steven Miller, chief medical officer of the St. Louis-based company. Express Scripts said in December it may block reimbursement for Foster City, California-based Gilead’s pill once other new hepatitis C therapies are on the market.

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