Centene’s Restructuring Initiative Focuses on Behavioral Health and Pharmacy Growth

Centene Corporation is undergoing a broad organizational restructuring initiative to focus on leveraging the company’s size and scale to unlock the value inherent across its broader whole health platform.

As part of the company’s effort to boost efficiency and scale it plans to reduce Centene’s workforce of approximately 3,000 employees and eliminate 1,500 open jobs.

Centene plans to drive growth from its position as a leader in government sponsored healthcare through product and geographic expansion. Centene views behavioral health as one of the most underserved areas in the population and its recent acquisition of  Magellan will increase the company’s investment in its specialty care capabilities while also focusing on improved integration of behavioral and physical health.

Another area of focus is pharmacy, which represents a large and significant market opportunity. Centene’s growing specialty pharmacy platform will provide enhanced insight into the specialty pharma pipeline, clinical requirements and costs management opportunities. Importantly, it will also drive additional opportunities for the patient engagement, better adherence rates and ultimately improved outcomes.

Centene’s recent acquisition of PANTHERx will play a major role in the company’s specialty pharmacy growth, adding $1 billion in revenue and establishing the company as a leader in treating rare disease and orphan drugs.

PANTHERx will continue to operate independently as part of the company’s drug management program, called Envolve Pharmacy Solutions, which includes pharmacy benefit management and specialty pharmacy capabilities.

Envolve Pharmacy Solutions provides total drug management that combines the systems, tools and expertise of a PBM with the capabilities and experience of a comprehensive specialty pharmacy, AcariaHealth, an Envolve solution, to provide a full spectrum of pharmacy benefit management services that are tailored to each of its plan sponsor partners.

 

Takeaway: Centene plans to continue to evaluate small acquisitions in the areas it has identified for growth