Elevance Health inked a deal to acquire a specialty pharmacy that caters to patients with complex and chronic conditions like cancer and multiple sclerosis.
The insurer said BioPlus will complement its existing pharmacy benefit manager, IngenioRx, providing patients with specialty drugs and a whole-health approach.
After closing and integrating BioPlus into operations, the company will be able to leverage the insights from both pharmacy and medical benefits, Elevance announced on Wednesday.
Working together, BioPlus’ pharmacy team will be able to identify “a patient who may need behavioral health support or in-home care services” and “seamlessly connect that patient to services to address their whole health needs,” Elevance said.
The deal is expected to close in the first half of 2023. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.
Elevance entered the deal with with CarepathRx, a portfolio company of private equity firm Nautic Partners, to acquire BioPlus.
CarepathRx provides pharmacy services to more than 20 health systems and 600 hospitals and serves patients in all 50 states. CarepathRx said it helps systems dispense more than 8 million prescriptions each year. The company was founded in 2019.
Elevance, known at the time as Anthem, announced in 2017 that it was cutting ties with its pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts to bring the business in-house. Now, many of the nation’s largest insurers operate their own PBM.
The insurer said BioPlus will operate as part of IngenioRx.
More recently, the Indianapolis-based insurer beat Wall Street expectations for the third quarter and raised its earnings target for the full year.
Elevance’s profit climbed to $1.6 billion for the third quarter, a 7% increase compared with the prior-year period on a bigger membership base of 47.3 million members.