Tim Wentworth is new Express Scripts president

Express Scripts, Inc (St. Louis), the No. 1 pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) in the US, has announced the appointment of Tim Wentworth as president, reporting to chairman and CEO, George Paz. Wentworth, formerly an SVP at the company, came onboard after Express Scripts acquired Medco--at the time the third-largest PBM--two years ago, a process that the company says is now “largely complete.”

Express Scripts is a major intersection point for the entire life sciences industry: it manages prescription costs for over 100 million individuals, and one out of four prescriptions written in the US, according to company literature. Generally, employer plans and insurers contract with Express Scripts (as with any PBM) to negotiate drug costs with manufacturers and then pass some or all those savings on to the payers. It is also a force in retail chain pharmacy; Walgreens tried to opt out of accepting Express Scripts prescriptions in 2012 in a dispute over dispensing costs, but then came back in when it saw prescription sales falling. The company, also a major force in specialty pharmacy through its Accredo and Curascript subsidiaries, touts its program of “Health Decision Science” to help patients, as it says, “to make the best drug choices.”

“We are extremely well positioned to control client costs, improve patient care and drive better health outcomes,” said Wentworth in a statement. “With the industry's broadest and best set of solutions, and responsibility for thousands of clients and tens of millions of people, we can uniquely create meaningful and sustainable improvement in healthcare.”