UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) said Thursday its Optum unit has signed a multi-year agreement with Merck (NYSE: MRK) to develop a better way to reimburse drug makers based how well their drugs improve a patient's health.
A news release out Thursday indicated that the two drug concerns will collaborate to develop and simulate the performance of contractual reimbursement models in which payment for prescription drugs is aligned more closely with patient health outcomes.
UnitedHealth and other insurers have been pushing hospitals and doctors toward new value-based reimbursement contracts for more than five years. In the last 18 months, the health insurance industry has begun to focus more on new payment deals with drug makers to enter outcomes-based risk sharing agreements, or OBRSAs.
Under OBRSAs, health plans and other payers reimburse drug manufacturers on the basis of clinical outcomes achieved. Prices can fall or rise if the results succeed or fail to meet expectations outlined in the agreement.
Increasingly, OBRSAs have become part of the conversation across the health-care system due to the desire by health plans, care providers, PBMs, and pharmaceutical companies to base reimbursements on evidence-based outcomes.
UnitedHealth is targeting signing another five to 10 outcomes-based deals this year.
The actual returns on the program could still be years away, but UnitedHealth and Merck say they will share their data publicly with others in the industry to develop better payment models.
United Health moved into the later trading hours of Thursday up $2.88, or 1.6%, from Wednesday’s close to $178.47, while new ally Merck faded 11 cents to $64.82.
