Express Scripts offers low-cost alternative to Turing drug

The nation’s biggest pharmacy benefits manager is muscling back into the debate over soaring drug costs by promoting a less-expensive alternative to a life-saving medicine with a list price of $750 per pill.

Express Scripts announced its decision the same day a bipartisan report from the Senate Finance Committee concluded that Gilead Sciences put profit ahead of patients in pricing its breakthrough hepatitis C treatment Sovaldi at $1,000 per pill.

Leaders of the HIV Medicine Association and The Infectious Diseases Society of America said in an e-mail that they are urging other pharmacy benefits managers and health insurers to make the Imprimis option available as well.

A Turing representative said in an e-mail that the company is “committed to ensuring access to patients who need Daraprim and has implemented a number of patient assistance programs” that can limit out-of-pocket payment to $10 per prescription.

Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic infection that mainly threatens people with weak immune systems, such as HIV and organ transplant patients, and pregnant women, because it can kill their baby.

Express Scripts says only a few hundred of its customers were treated last year for the infection, but the company is always looking to remove wasteful spending from the health care system.

Express Scripts, which manages prescription drug benefits for about 85 million people, has long been a vocal critic of rising drug prices.