ValueRx GI disease management drug spend could drop 30% for specific client.

VALUERx GI DISEASE MANAGEMENT DRUG SPEND COULD FALL 30% for one of the pharmacy benefit manager's biggest clients, according to company projections based on previous physician education programs, ValueRx said June 20. ValueRx' gastrointestinal disease management program was initiated for the client in the first quarter of this year, ValueRx reported, and should have results that can be analyzed in the autumn.

Gastrointestinal disease was chosen as a focus for a disease management program because patients can be monitored largely through claims data, and because of innovations in the field for treatment of GERD and peptic ulcers that could demand new drug regimens, ValueRx said. A number of GI patients are not being treated correctly, with patients receiving inappropriate or conflicting drug regimens, the company maintained. ValueRx is debuting its GI disease management program on a client whose GI drug spend moved from $59/month to $64/month and whose GI drug use increased from 12.9% to 14.1% in one year.

ValueRx created five treatment guidelines for its gastrointestinal program. The guides address dyspepsia; H2 antagonist dosing-based renal status function and age; GI complications in nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug patients; Helicobacter pylori; and gastroesophageal reflux disease.

The guidelines were compiled internally, ValueRx said, using the company's own Pharmacy & Therapeutics committee and through consultation of various association guidelines and national guidelines, including the National Institutes of Health consensus statement on the treatment of H. pylori ("The Pink Sheet" Feb. 14, 1994, p. 21).

To examine GI prescribing patterns, ValueRx patients are identified by dosage level of drug, age, length of therapy, concurrent diseases, drug/drug interactions and drug-induced disease. Patients are then aggregated by physician, and the physicians are contacted by ValueRx. The PBM mails out treatment guidelines it deems appropriate for particular doctors, mailing all five to high prescribers. The company gets much of its data from voluntary doctor response.

ValueRx has seen a 45% response rate to its request for medical data from doctors treating ValueRx patients, the firm said. The strong rate is considered a result of the company's continued contact with physicians through quarterly newsletters and mailers on drug utilization review information, ValueRx said.