From CNBC:

Tyson Foods will stop using traditional large pharmacy benefits managers in an effort to reduce spending on high-cost drugs. After putting its benefits contract up for bid, Tyson chose PBM startup Rightway to manage drug benefits for its 140,000 employees starting this year. Rightway guarantees it can save employers 15% on pharmacy costs using a transparent model.

Startups like Rightway challenge the largest benefit managers and have pushed them to change their business models. Tyson saw its pharmacy costs soar, with specialty drugs contributing to significant increases year over year. Renu Chhabra, Tyson’s vice president and head of global benefits, found it difficult to get data she wanted from the company’s old pharmacy benefit manager.

Large employers typically work with the three biggest PBM players, but smaller PBMs like Rightway have marketed themselves as more transparent alternatives. By the end of 2022, the big three PBMs controlled nearly 80% of the pharmacy benefits market in the US. The lack of transparency into the way they negotiate discounts and how much of those savings they pass on to employers and patients has drawn scrutiny from Congress and the FTC.

Until now, upstarts challenging the big PBMs have only won over small and medium-sized companies, but Tyson is Rightway’s first employer with more than 100,000 workers. University of Southern California economist Karen Van Nuys said if more large employers turn to alternative PBM players, it could improve competition and bring costs down. At Tyson, the biggest health problem it hopes to tackle is diabetes management and finding the right balance when it comes to coverage for high-cost weight loss drugs.



Read more: Tyson Foods drops CVS, picks Rightway pharmacy benefit manager