Driving Down Prescription Drug Costs Through a Strategic Partnership with Civica Rx

I’m proud to announce Blue Shield of California, along with other Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans across the country, is partnering with Civica Rx, a nonprofit working to ensure essential generic medications are accessible and affordable. Our organizations share the same vision: we believe everyone should have access to essential prescription medicines at an affordable price.

This is an important step for us, with more to come. Prescription drugs are too expensive due to the intense profit-seeking of drug companies in a low-competition environment. In response, we plan to introduce competitive alternatives to the marketplace to ensure we have affordable drugs available to our members. Anytime, anywhere a drug is off-patent, that’s an opportunity for us to create an alternative and ensure consumers are not only getting high-quality medications but that they’re affordable

The pharmaceutical manufacturers and biotech companies that want our business need to demonstrate that they are improving quality and affordably, or we’re going to do it ourselves.

Pricing through our partnership with Civica Rx will be transparent, and we are committed to passing the savings on to our members. Civica Rx is already working with more than 1,200 hospitals to ensure an affordable and stable supply of generic medications. With this investment and partnership from Blue Shield and other members of the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association, Civica Rx will create a new entity to reduce the costs of generic drugs for patients outside of the hospital setting. By partnering together, we will make these more affordable generics available to consumers across the country.

I encourage others in the industry to join us and work together to lower the cost of these essential medicines. For more information about this exciting partnership, visit our news center.

This groundbreaking partnership with Civica Rx is the latest in a series of actions Blue Shield has taken to reduce drug prices in recent years. We led advocacy efforts that helped pass S.B. 17, California’s first-in-the-nation drug price transparency law requiring pharmaceutical companies to disclose price increases. And we empowered physicians with new technology so they can prescribe less expensive, equally effective medications through our collaboration with Gemini Health.

While the journey is far from over, I am extremely proud of the work we’ve done to reduce prescription drug costs through advocating for sound policy, leveraging technology and now improving the availability of generic medications through this strategic partnership. At Blue Shield of California, our north star is to create a healthcare system that is worthy of our family and friends and sustainably affordable. This partnership is another big step toward achieving that vision.