Novartis Reaches Entresto Pay-for-Performance Deals With Cigna, Aetna

Cigna Corp. and Aetna Inc. have reached agreements for heart drug Entresto with Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG that tie pricing to patient outcomes.

Such pay-for-performance deals, which set pricing on certain drugs based on how well they work for certain patients, have been spurred by concerns about increasingly high prices for some medicines.

A Novartis spokesman confirmed Tuesday that pharmaceuticals division head David R. Epstein was referring to Cigna and Aetna when he said Novartis reached performance-based deals with two health insurers on the drugmaker's fourth-quarter earnings conference call last month.

Health insurer Cigna said in a news release Monday said its pay-for-performance deal with Novartis for Entresto primarily links the financial terms to a reduction in the portion of its customers that are hospitalized for heart failure.

An Aetna spokesman couldn't immediately be reached to comment.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Entresto, a tablet taken twice daily, in July. A clinical trial showed it reduced the risk of death and hospitalization from heart failure versus another drug, enalapril.

Entresto's U.S. list price, also known as its wholesale acquisition cost, is $12.50 a day, or about $4,560 a year per patient.

Pay-for-performance contracts often involve tracking certain health measures and outcomes in specific patients. The cost and complexity of such tracking can offset the benefits and the number of such deals in the U.S. to date has been relatively small.

Write to Tess Stynes at [e-mail]

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 09, 2016 12:45 ET (17:45 GMT)

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