PBMI Innovator, Joseph Savasta

Joseph Savasta, founder and CEO of HarmonyRx, says the pharmacy benefit manager has no plans to be acquired, even as consolidation continues to reshape the PBM industry and larger players absorb smaller competitors.

"We're not for sale," Savasta said, noting that acquisition offers arrive regularly. He said HarmonyRx's model, built around full pass-through pricing rather than spread pricing, positions the company well as state and federal legislation increasingly pushes PBMs toward that kind of transparency. "Our model is what they're all going to have to move to," he said.

Under that model, HarmonyRx returns all rebates to clients and does not profit from the difference between what it charges plan sponsors and what it pays pharmacies for prescriptions. Savasta said the company built its own clinical, underwriting, customer service, and analytics functions rather than outsourcing them, relying on outside PBMs only for pharmacy network access.

Savasta traces the company's roots to an employee benefits consulting firm he built after starting his career in the insurance industry in the 1980s. That business grew from working with self-funded employers, unions, and municipalities on health plan administration, and HarmonyRx emerged from it in 2004, at a time when few PBMs disclosed pricing data. Savasta said much of the company's early growth came from competitors' clients seeking a firm willing to work on large accounts without the funding arrangements more common PBMs relied on.

Savasta credits his late father, a pension actuary, with shaping that approach to the business. "It's just about getting them to trust you and do the right work, and they'll always trust you, and you just keep moving," he said, adding that the same principle guided the company's other lines, including employee benefits consulting and administration.