A unit of Minnesota health insurance giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. with an office in Irvine has struck a long-anticipated “preferred partnership” with a major drugstore chain.
UnitedHealth’s Optum Rx pharmacy benefit management division and Walgreens, the drugstore unit of Deerfield, Ill.-based Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., said this month that they signed a deal giving eligible Optum Rx members the option to fill 90-day prescriptions at home delivery copayment levels at any of Walgreens’ nearly 8,200 pharmacies across the U.S. or through Optum’s home delivery network.
The deal takes effect Jan. 1, 2017.
Optum Rx and Walgreens said in a news release that the alliance will produce “higher treatment adherence rates and better patient outcomes by giving patients the choice of how to receive their medications along with 24/7 pharmacist availability.”
Other agreement features include connecting Optum Rx members to clinical guidance that addresses specific diseases, such as diabetes, and can increase drug adherence. It also calls for the companies’ information technologies to “better connect and communicate health data and analytics to ensure members receive the most effective prescription drugs at the right cost.”
Wall Street liked the pact.
“We see this deal as adding meaningfully to the value proposition of Optum Rx, which now manages more than 1 billion [prescriptions], through improved flexibility and convenience for Optum Rx employer customers and consumers,” said Ana Gupte, a managed care analyst with Boston-based investment bank Leerink Swann LLC, in a research note discussing the deal.
Gupte wrote that the announcement’s timing was relatively consistent with Leerink-sponsored roadshow discussions with UnitedHealth President David Wichmann that took place in January.
Wichmann told Gupte during the roadshows that Optum was “not looking to ink an exclusive deal with a retail pharmacy but is always open to strategic preferred partnerships” such as the Walgreens deal.
UnitedHealth employs about 3,900 throughout Orange County, the vast majority of whom work in Cypress. The company came to OC through its 2005 buy of PacifiCare Health Systems Inc. for $9 billion.
Sapien 3 OK’d in Japan
Irvine-based Edwards Lifesciences Corp.’s less-invasive Sapien 3 replacement heart valve has been approved by the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labor and Welfare. The agency approved the valve for treating patients with severe symptomatic aortic stenosis, or a narrowing of the body’s main artery.
Edwards said in a news release that it anticipates the ministry will approve reimbursement in the second quarter and the company will launch Sapien 3 immediately thereafter, with a full introduction by the end of the year.
“We appreciate the [ministry’s] progressive decision-making in allowing this device to be available to Japanese patients in a timely manner, bringing Japan alongside the U.S. and Europe,” said Dr. Huimin Wang, Edwards’ corporate vice president, Japan, Asia and Pacific.
Execs Promoted
San Juan Capistrano-based Allegro Ophthalmics LLC promoted a pair of executives this month.
Allegro is the developer of Luminate, a drug designed to treat vitreoretinal diseases that’s now in second-phase clinical trials for multiple indications, including diabetic macular edema and nonproliferative diabetic retinopathy.
Dr. Vicken Karageozian is Allegro’s new president and chief medical officer and is responsible for developing and executing Allegro’s corporate, clinical and financial strategies.
Karageozian was previously Allegro’s chief technical officer. He is the co-founder of three ophthalmic biotechnology companies, including Ista Pharmaceuticals Inc., which was based in Irvine and acquired by Rochester, N.Y.-based Bausch & Lomb Inc. in 2012. Bausch is now part of Canada’s Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Inc.
John Park, previously Allegro’s vice president of product development, is now its chief scientific officer and vice president of manufacturing development. He’s in charge of the scientific discovery, preclinical development and manufacturing development to support Allegro’s drug platforms. His background includes serving as principal research scientist at Irvine-based Allergan Inc. (now Allergan PLC) for 16 years.
Bits & Pieces
Newport Beach-based ImmunogenX said it has acquired the noncash assets of San Carlos-based Alvine Pharmaceuticals for an undisclosed price. Alvine’s lead product candidate, Latglutenase, is being developed for celiac disease. … BrainChip Holdings Ltd., an Australian company with a U.S. office in Aliso Viejo, recently released a client/server interface tool to be used with its spiking neuron adaptive processor technology, which can learn autonomously, evolve and associate information like the human brain. … UC Irvine Health said it’s now implanting Dublin, Ireland-based Medtronic PLC’s Compia MRI and Compia MRI Quad CRT-D SureScan devices for heart failure patients. The defibrillators can be used with magnetic imaging resonance systems.
