PBM highlights need for 'new payment model' after Kymriah nod

Express Scripts, the USA’s largest pharmacy benefit manager, has called for a new payment model to help pay for gene therapies.

The group’s chief medical officer, Steve Miller, has reacted to the US approval of the first CAR-T cell therapy, Swiss pharma giant Novartis’ Kymriah (tisagenlecleucel) for young patients with B-cell precursor acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL), by writing about how the price of these individually-tailored medicines might be afforded.

“Ultimately, Express Scripts believes gene therapies will require payment and patient care systems which are as novel as the medications themselves,” Dr Miller writes.