The level and pace of pharmacy cost increases in 2025 compelled employers to deeply understand the drivers of costs and how they can react quickly and strategically. According to our 2026 Employer Health Care Strategy Survey, 95% of employers are concerned about pharmacy costs. The increasing utilization of GLP-1s to treat obesity, an influx of late-stage cancers needing more aggressive treatment protocols and the pipeline of high-cost cell- and gene-based therapies have been relatively new contributors to mounting pharmacy costs.

To assist employers as they grapple with the complexity of rising pharmacy costs and contracting challenges, as well as evaluate new solutions, we provided support through our various resources and insights:

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Taking Action on Pharmacy Benefits. A Business Group on Health Viewpoint. In this viewpoint, we shared insights on the drivers of rising pharmacy costs, as well as provided actions employers can take.

Key Insight:

In an employer-to-employer sharing call, employers discussed their ability to control GLP-1 spend and overall trade-offs between contractual guarantees, formulary control and rebates.

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Evolving and Alternative Pharmacy Benefit Management Models: Exploring the Broader Array of Employer Choices. As employers seek improvements in pharmacy cost, transparency and member experience, they may be more willing to disrupt the traditional pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) model and embrace innovation.

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Rethinking Prescription Drug Rebates: Moving Toward Transparent Pricing. A comprehensive look into prescription drug rebates and their unintended consequences, along with an evaluation of their impact on price and formulary decisions.

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New GLP‑1 Most Favored Nation Pricing Deal Raises Questions for Employers. An analysis of the “Most Favored Nation” agreement on costs for GLP-1 injectables and forthcoming oral formularies.

Select Convening:

Our Pharmacy Benefit Committee took a deep dive into how employers can unlock the savings potential of biosimilars at an accelerated pace. Employers also learned about pros and cons of new drug pricing models and evolving pharmacy RFP and audit strategies.

Watch

We tackled challenging pharmacy issues in two interactive discussions with industry experts – one event uncovered strategies to manage costs and utilization of GLP-1s and the other explored bold moves in pharmacy benefit management.