Prime Therapeutics Announces Rebranding, New Look

Prime Therapeutics LLC is giving itself a makeover and folding Magellan Rx Management into its name, the pharmacy benefit manager announced this morning

Prime Therapeutics' new logo

Prime, headquartered in Eagan, Minnesota, is one of six largest pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) in the country, an industry that has come under increasing criticism and scrutiny for its business practices and vertical and horizontal consolidation trends.

Prime acquired Magellan Rx from Centene, a Medicaid managed care company, for $1.35 billion in a deal that closed at the end of 2022. Magellan Rx is specialty drug management company and also a full-service PBM for approximately 1.7 million people.

Mostafa Kamal, who had been CEO of Magellan Rx, was named president and CEO of Prime in July 2023.

“Prime is reshaping how pharmacy benefits are managed in a way that is patient-centric, more affordable and more intuitive,” Kamal was quoted as saying in this morning’s news release.

The rebranding includes a new logo, imagery, colors, website and customer experience, says the news release. The new release says Prime is creating “a new standard for the industry” with transparent and conflict-free business practices that include not steering patients to its own pharmacies, “holistic specialty expertise,” and modern technology.

“Shifting industry trends present significant opportunities to leverage Prime’s scale and unique capabilities to drive meaningful transformation in our industry,” Kamal said in the news release.

Prime, which was started in 1998 by Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Minnesota and Nebraska, is now jointly owned by 19 Blue plans and has several more Blues plans as clients. Today’s news release mentions that as a privately held company “owned by mission-driven partners, Prime is not distracted by short-term priorities.”

Prime does, however, take advantage of the group purchasing organization affiliated with Express Scripts called Ascent Health which is headquartered in Switzerland. Critics of the PBM industry say the group purchasing organizations add an obscure layer to the already convoluted system delivering and paying for prescription drugs in the U.S. In 2023, the state of Ohio filed a lawsuit against Ascent Health and several PBMs, including Prime, alleging that Ascent allow them to collude on drug prices and manufacturers’ rebates.

Prime announced the rebranding at the beginning of its three-day Specialty Summit, an annual meeting it convenes on specialty pharmacy. The meeting is being held in New York City this year.

The old look