Pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) Express Scripts said it plans to buy rival Medco Health Solutions, currently the largest PBM, for $29.1 billion. A combined company could have more pull in negotiating drug prices. The planned merger comes shortly after Medco lost its biggest contract, an $11 billion account with UnitedHealth Group which had accounted for 17% of Medco’s business.
Roche said sales were down 4% and 2% for the second quarter and first six months, respectively. Accounting for some of this decline were decreases in sales of cancer drug Avastin (down 7%) and leukemia med Rituxan (down 3%). Diagnostics sales were also down about 2%.
Eli Lilly reported second-quarter revenue up 9% to $6.3 billion, beating analyst consensus by 4%. Lilly did not include any significant pipeline updates in the Q2 report.
