Independence Blue Cross announced Wednesday that it is selling its four-year-old pharmacy-benefits arm - FutureScripts L.L.C. and FutureScripts Secure L.L.C. - to Catalyst Health Solutions Inc., a Rockville, Md., company that says it is the country's fourth largest publicly traded pharmacy-benefits firm. The $225 million deal is expected to close later this year. It includes the value of a future tax benefit for Catalyst. Pharmacy-benefits managers do everything from negotiating prices with drugstores, to providing mail-order drugs, to monitoring whether patients are taking the best - and best-priced - drugs for chronic health conditions. Independence Blue Cross spokeswoman Liz Williams said IBC started FutureScripts at a time when many insurers saw the potential benefits of integrating medical and pharmacy data. A company could hold costs down, for example, by making sure that diabetics were taking their medicines.
