Integrichain, PharmaMetrics pair up to broaden revenue tracking in pharma transactions

Outsiders (or, in fact, customers) of the pharmaceutical distribution and dispensing businesses complain of how opaque it is to price, profits and costs; in fact, there’s a lot of cloudiness inside the pharma distribution business, with retail pharmacies not clear on how they will be reimbursed by payers, and payers not sure of what rebates are being passed on to them by PBMs, and manufacturers unsure of whether they’ve accounted for their costs properly when they file pricing data to CMS. A popular way to at least identify the goal from a pharma perspective, is to perform a “gross to net” analysis, factoring in distribution costs, rebates, after-the-fact discounts and myriad other components to (hopefully) arrive at an accurate picture of a product’s market and profitability. Josh Halpern, EVP, sales and marketing, at Integrichain, asserts that even with the increased data available through current industry practices, there remain “significant visibility gaps” in the overall pharma-to-patient picture. And with the acquisition of PharmaMetrics, the company hopes to fix those gaps.

Integrichain had established itself first as a source of analytics of mfr-wholesaler (EDI) data, which tracking product movement and revenue flows between the two. More recently, it has added data sources around pharmacy scrips, and medical claims, in order to provide visibility farther down the supply chain. Now, with PharmaMetrics, a dimension of payer analytics comes in: PharmaMetrics, nearly 20 years old, has made its way by providing contract administration and government and commercial pricing and rebating analysis for manufacturers. Put it all together, as Integrichain hopes to do over the next 12 months, says Halpern, and the company’s clients will have greater visibility and predictability in their commercialization planning. In the meantime, PharmaMetrics products and brand will continue to be supported for clients.

“Many organizations now have their patient access and trade functions reporting up to one senior executive,” concluded Bob Jansen, CEO of Zensights, a market consulting firm, in a statement. “IntegriChain’s acquisition of PharmaMetrics – ranked ‘Best in Class’ by the pharmaceutical industry for Rebate Processing and Contract Assessment Analytics in the 2016 Zensight ratings – will increase the value proposition that IntegriChain brings to these leaders.” Both Integrichain and PharmaMetrics are privately held; no purchase price was released.