Independent pharmacy benefit manager Serve You Rx and digital health company Waltz Health announced a partnership earlier this year, and now they're offering a look at the savings generated in their team-up.
Serve You Rx has integrated the proprietary Waltz Connect platform, which offers specialty pharmacy savings supported by AI. The partners found that between May and July of this year, they generated an average savings per prescription of $917, a total cost reduction of 14%.
It also meant average savings of $238 per prescription for members and $679 for employers and plan sponsors, per an announcement.
"In less than a year, we've had a pretty material change to where specialty drugs are filled, and how they're filled, and ultimately, the cost that employers are incurring by filling some of these very common specialty products," said Justin Jasniewski, CEO of Serve You Rx, in an interview with Fierce Healthcare.
Waltz Connect is built on AI-enabled prescription routing technology as well as a specialty marketplace that encourages pharmacies to compete against one another on price. The platform is also positioned to support a key goal at Serve You Rx, the uptake of biosimilars.
In combination with the PBM's Biosimilar Advantage Formulary, the partners achieved a 90% biosimilar conversion rate, generating significant savings across multiple priority, high-cost categories. For example, in autoimmune therapies, they saw savings of $1,177, or about 20%.
Key shifts include patients moving from Humira to the biosimilar Amjevita and from Stelara to Wezlana.
Through the partnership, Serve You Rx and Waltz Health also saw prior authorization determination times decrease by 50%, according to the announcement.
Jeff Park, president of Waltz Health, said that the results bolster the case for alternative firms and mid-market players in the PBM space. He told Fierce Healthcare he expects to see "more plans and payers opt out of their traditional, locked-in big three PBM models, and moving more towards this innovation."
"Change is challenging in our industry, and so what's exciting about Justin and the team at Serve You is that they're focused on bringing better ideas to market," Park said. "They're small, they're nimble, and they're innovative. And that's honestly one of the most important pieces to drive change."