Dive Brief:
- Elevance has named a longtime drug distributor executive to its board of directors as the health insurer focuses on building its pharmacy services.
- Steve Collis, the executive chair of Cencora’s board and the company’s former CEO, will join Elevance’s board effective Aug. 1, the health insurer announced Monday.
- Collis will also serve on the board’s audit and finance committees, Elevance said. His term will run through 2027.
Dive Insight:
Collis joined Cencora, then called Amerisource Bergen, three decades ago before climbing the corporate ladder through a variety of leadership roles. He was named CEO in 2011, and held the role for 13 years before retiring in 2024, though he stayed on as chairman of the drug distributor’s board.
“Steve brings a distinguished record of leadership, transformation, and operational excellence,” said Ramey Peru, Elevance’s board chair, in a statement. “His deep experience in healthcare operations and long-term value creation align well with our strategic objectives.”
Collis’ expertise at the center of pharmaceutical-based healthcare could prove helpful for Elevance as it steadily works to grow its Carelon health services division, which the company launched as part of its larger corporate rebranding in 2022. Carelon includes CarelonRx, Elevance’s pharmacy benefits manager, which controls a relatively small but growing slice of the U.S. PBM market.
Despite medical trends slamming Elevance’s legacy insurance business, Carelon Rx’s revenue was up more than 20% in the second quarter, while operating profit rose almost 8%.
Elevance chalked the results up to netting deals with larger customers and building out its lucrative specialty pharmacy assets, and said it planned to continue investing in growth.
“We continue to do well, down market and middle market but also we're seeing an expansion at the upper end of the market with some large jumbo accounts. And so we're investing in that pretty heavily as it relates to both this year and going into next year,” Peter Haytaian, the president of Carelon Rx, said during a call with investors earlier this month.
