Civica Rx Adds Anthem and Calalent As Partners, Names Its Retail Arm CivicaScript

Civica Rx, founded in 2018 as a nonprofit supplier of generic drugs to hospitals, announced today that it was expanding its fledging retail generics business to include a partnership with Anthem and has officially named the retail subsidiary CivicaScript.

The company also announced that Gina Guinasso, J.D., has been named president of CivicaScript. Prior to CivicaScript, Guinasso had been senior vice president of commercial and Medicare formulary strategy for OptumRx, the UnitedHealth Group’s PBM. Her LinkedIn page says she started at CivicaScript in May.

This morning’s press release also announced that Civica Rx has entered into a long-term partnership with Catalent, a drug development and manufacturing company headquartered in Somerset, New Jersey.

Civica announced last year that it was branching out from its hospital business into the retail market in partnership with the Blue Cross Blue Shield Foundation and 17 Blues plans. But today's news elevates the profile of the subsidiary and may foreshadow it becoming a disruptive force in the generics market. With the addition of Anthem, the CivicaScript subsidiary will have insurance partners that cover about 100 million lives.

The press release says that CivicaScript will start by developing and manufacturing six to 10 common, high-priced generics and that they will be available as early as 2022 through retail and mail-order pharmacies. “Using a cost-plus and price transparent model, CivicaScript … plans to innovate and further transform the supply chain to lower the cost of prescription medicines,” the press release says..

The announcement says all of Civica Rx’s hospital system members will have access to the retail medications manufactured by the newly named subsidiary. More than 50 hospital systems that comprise 1,400 hospitals are Civica Rx members.

Catalent will develop a range of CivicaScript-owned generic Abbreviated New Drug Applications, according to he press release, and production will take place at the company’s facilities in Somerset and in Winchester, Kentucky.

“We are delighted to welcome our newest partners and our new CivicaScript president, Gina Guinasso, a nationally revered managed healthcare executive,” Martin VanTrieste, Civica Rx’s president and CEO, said in the press release.

Civica Rx was a founded by seven health systems (CommonSpirit Health, HCA Healthcare, Intermountain Healthcare, Mayo Clinic, Providence St. Joseph Health, SSM Health and Trinity Health) and three philanthropies (the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, the Peterson Center on Healthcare and the Gary and Mary West Foundation). Kaiser Permanente and Memorial Hermann Health have since joined these organizations on its board of directors.