Civica Rx Finding Success in Supply Generic Drugs

Civica Rx is a public asset founded in September 2018 and formed by three philanthropies and numerous health care organizations that represent over 1,200 U.S. hospitals in 46 states. It is a nonprofit enterprise designed to reduce chronic generic drug shortages and high pricing. Civica Rx is also collaborating with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

Unlike for-profit companies, Civica Rx’s mission is to ensure that essential generic medications are accessible and affordable. These are drugs that have emerged from the patent-protection period and are in the public domain. Within three to five years, Civica Rx expects to offer its member hospitals up to 100 generic medicines.

This hospital systems that sit on Civica Rx’s Drug Selection Advisory Committee pick the medications for prioritization. These drugs are approved by the governing board and the management team.

The company will operate on a membership model, with several levels of membership that will allow access for all hospitals, regardless of size. Members will range from small community hospitals of fewer than two dozen beds to the largest hospital systems in the nation.

Civica Rx will eventually own the Abbreviated New Drug Applications (ANDAs) for the products that it sells. This means that it has the ability to control the quality and the supply of the product to meet its hospital partner needs.

Civica Rx has been successfully increasing the number of drugs to ensure hospitals have enough supply to treat patients through agreements with pharmaceutical manufacturers, that have included:

• Sandoz entered into a five-year agreement to supply Civica Rx with six common injectable drugs. The injectables include antibiotics, blood thinners, acid reducers, blood pressure regulators and drugs used in the operating room.
• Novartis’ Sandoz will ramp up supply of six generic injectables in high demand at hospitals. Sandoz aims to begin shipments later this year of a group of antibiotics, acid reducers, blood thinners, blood pressure regulators and medicines required in the operating room to 1,200 Civica member hospitals.
• The U.S government floateda four-year, $354 million contract with Phlow Corporation to build a generic medicine and active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) plant in Richmond, Virginia, and supply COVID-19 treatments produced there. To fulfill the government deal, Phlow teamed up with Civica and API supplier AMPAC, among others. Civica Rx and its partners will manufacture the finished dosage forms of essential medications, including vials and syringes.
• Civica Rx announced a seven-year deal with Thermo Fisher Scientific to develop ANDAs for essential physician-administered drugs. The deal includes nine drugs that the group says were chosen by hospital-led panels.

Civica Rx also recently announced the formation of a new Civica subsidiary with the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association and 18 independent Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies with the goal of lowering prescription drug costs.

The Blue Cross and Blue Shield companies will contribute $55 million to the yet-unnamed spinoff, which will submit abbreviated new drug applications, or ANDAs, for select high-cost, single-source generic drugs dispensed at the pharmacy counter. The group plans to have its first generic medicines available by early 2022.

Takeaway: Civica Rx, in a short time span, has made significant inroads into the generic drug market