Cutting health care costs may get a little easier. The New York Times reports some drug companies are cutting deals with insurers that tie the cost of the drug to its performance.
Last week, Procter & Gamble and Sanofi-Aventis, joint sellers of Actonel, an osteoporosis drug, made an agreement with an insurer, Health Alliance, to reimburse the costs of treating fractures suffered by patients taking that medicine, the Times writes.
If Health Alliance customers who correctly use Actonel suffer a non-spinal fracture anyway, the drug companies will help pay for medical needed to treat it – up to $30,000 for a hip fracture, and $6,000 for a wrist fracture, according to the paper.
Recommended For You
"We're going to see a growth in outcomes guarantees for pharmaceuticals, and it's very healthy," Robert Seidman, a consultant and the former chief pharmacy officer for WellPoint, told the Times.
Indeed, other companies have already started making similar agreements.
Merck and Cigna announced a deal on Thursday, Reuters reports, that will provide discounts to Cigna on some of Merck's diabetes drugs. Under the agreement, the insurer will receive discounts on Januvia and Janumet if the company's diabetic plan participants show improvement in their blood sugar levels after using the drugs. Cigna will also receive discounts if the patients "do better at staying on Januvia and Janumet," the news agency writes.
The drugs are now listed as "preferred" on Cigna's drug coverage list.
Deals like these may benefit drug companies by reducing the pressure on insurance companies to move patients off more expensive drugs, the New York Times writes.
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
