OptumRx is Aggressively Growing its Business Through Acquisitions

A month ago AMI published a blog titled, Will Diplomat Pharmacy Survive? We now know the answer as UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx division announced it will buy Diplomat Pharmacy for $300 million, or approximately $4 a share, down from the previous day’s closing price of approximately $5.80 per share.

UnitedHealth said the combination will support improved health outcomes and reduced prescription-drug costs while helping lower the overall total cost of care.

OptumRx serves 56 million people, manages about $96 billion in drug spend and dispenses 1.3 billion adjusted prescriptions annually. OptumRx has been implementing a growth strategy through acquisitions recently, purchasing Avella Specialty Pharmacy and Genoa Healthcare.

OptumRx has been aggressively growing its portfolio of pharmacy care services businesses. The Diplomat acquisition will add CastiaRx to its PBM business, and strengthen its share of the oncology market.

OptumRx’s goal is to align pharmacy, medical and behavioral health needs of patients using data and evidence-based protocol to enable end-to-end management of care treat patients holistically. To achieve this goal, OptumRx has been expanding its ability to serve members who need high cost specialty drugs, including direct delivery of infusion services.

Takeaways

The specialty pharmacy market consolidation continues as the large health insurers look to leverage their size to control prescriptions.