U.S. prescription market: market share of pharmacy benefit managers 2023

In 2023, the top pharmacy benefit managers included CVS Health, Cigna, and OptumRx, to name a few. CVS Health had the largest share of the pharmacy benefit manager market in that year. In total, CVS Health held 34 percent of the market at that time. Pharmacy benefit managers are an important part of the prescription drug supply chain in the United States. 

Pharmacy benefit managers

Pharmacy benefit managers are responsible for the operation and distribution of pharmaceuticals to patients and pharmacies. They are also responsible for the negotiation of rebates and processing of insurance claims from patients and pharmacies. Among pharmaceutical distributors in the U.S., chain stores distributed the largest value of pharmaceuticals recently. However, data suggests that pharmacy benefit managers have the highest gross profit among all actors in the U.S. drugs supply chain.

Generic drugs

Lately, the growth of the generic prescriptions volume in the U.S. market has remained fairly stable, with growth in all years. With stable growth in generics, the number of brand name medicines that were excluded from pharmacy benefit manager formularies recently had been on the rise. Generic drugs are useful to the consumer in that, in many cases, they provide a cheaper (but equal) alternative to brand name drugs.