Yesterday, CVS announced that it would be dropping two brand-name biologic drugs from its standard formulary (list of medications CVS will cover): Amgen’s Neupogen® (filgrastim), and Sanofi’s Lantus® (insulin glargine).  CVS will be replacing Neupogen® with Sandoz’s Zarxio® biosimilar product, and will replace Lantus® with  Eli Lilly & Co.’s Basaglar® product, which is approved in the U.S. as a follow-on biologic and is approved in Europe as a biosimilar.

The changes in coverage will take effect beginning January 1, 2017.

Additional coverage of CVS’s announcement can be found at the Wall Street Journal (here and here) and Bloomberg (here).

Stay tuned to the Big Molecule Watch for other news and developments.