Evernorth Will Offer a Private-Label Stelara Biosimilar in 2025

Beginning in early 2025, Evernorth Health Services will offer clients and their members a private-label biosimilar of Stelara (ustekinumab). The interchangeable biosimilar will be produced for Evernorth’s affiliate private-label distributor, Quallent Pharmaceuticals, and will have a price that is more than 80% lower than the list price of Stelara. In a press release, Evernorth indicated that this represents an opportunity for significant savings.

Developed by Janssen, a Johnson & Johnson company, Stelara is a high-cost drug with a list price of $13,836 for one month’s supply. In the first half of this year, Stelara generated worldwide sales of $5.3 billion, up 1.8% from the first half of 2023, according to Johnson and Johnson’s second quarter earnings.

Evernorth’s private-label biosimilar of Stelara will be available for $0 out of pocket for eligible patients through Evernorth’s specialty pharmacy, Accredo. More than 30,000 Accredo patients currently use Stelara, which is a biologic approved to treat patients with several autoimmune diseases, including Crohn’s, ulcerative colitis, plaque psoriasis and psoriatic arthritis.

The patient copay program will be through Quallent’s copay assistance program. This program is expected to save individual patients around $4,000 on average per year.

In June 2024, Evernorth began shipping a private-label Humira (adalimumab) biosimilar, which is available as both high- and low-concentration interchangeable product and $0 copay for eligible patients. So far, more than 25% of eligible Accredo patients are now using the private-label Humira biosimilar, the company said.

Matt Perlberg

“We’re already seeing strong interest in the Humira biosimilar made available to Accredo patients in June, and now we’re focused on improving affordability and access to another widely used, high-cost treatment for a variety of inflammatory conditions,” Matt Perlberg, president of Evernorth Health Services’ pharmacy and care delivery businesses, said in a news release.

For Evernorth’s private-label Humira, two companies — Boehringer Ingelheim and Alvotech — are providing the product to Quallent Pharmaceuticals.

So far, there has been no word from Evernoth about which company or companies will be manufacturing the Stelara private-label biosimilar.

The FDA has approved three Stelara biosimilars, which will be available next year. The most recent approval was Samsung Bioepis’ Pyzchiva in July 2024. Two others include: Alvotech/Teva Pharmaceuticals’ Selarsdi approved in April 2024 and Amgen’s Wezlana approved in November 2023. Wezlana was also approved with interchangeability.