Express Scripts Reportedly To Cover AbbVie Hepatitis C Drug

(RTTNews) - Pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts (ESRX) is said to cover only AbbVie's newly approved hepatitis C regimen for patients with the most common form of the virus, according to media reports. Beginning January 1, it is going to exclude drugs from Gilead Sciences and Johnson & Johnson for that indication.

On Friday, AbbVie's Viekira Pak was approved, and the firm said it would have a price of $83,319, the reports added. The deal with Express Scripts involves a "significant discount" wrung from two months of negotiations, as per various reports.

Express Scripts, the biggest manager of prescriptions for U.S. insurance plans when measured by revenue, would make AbbVie's Viekira Pak available to all patients with genotype 1.