Express Scripts Canada to Host Health Benefits Forum

• Forum to Examine Ways to Better Manage Health, Prescription Drug Benefits

MISSISSAUGA, ON, June 18, 2012 /CNW/ - Express Scripts Canada, one of the largest providers of health benefits management services in Canada, today announced that it will host the Express Scripts Canada Health Benefits Forum tomorrow, Tuesday, June 19, 2012, at the Mississauga Convention Centre.

The half-day event, which gets under way at 8:30 a.m. ET, is for organizations that provide health benefits to their employees, will focus on the changing dynamics in the Canadian health-benefits market, and the need to change how health benefits programs in general - and the prescription drug benefit in particular - are managed.

"With the rising cost of providing health benefits programs, many, including the prescription drug benefit, are not sustainable," said Michael Biskey, President of Express Scripts Canada. "Express Scripts' evidenced-based research products and services allow clients, policymakers, the health-care community and the general public to make clinically and financially sound decisions about the provision and management of health benefits."

Don Drummond to Deliver Keynote Address
The keynote address at the Express Scripts Canada Health Benefits Forum - What Really Lies Ahead for the Health-Care Industry in the Future Economy - will be delivered by Don Drummond, former Senior Vice-President and Chief Economist at TD Bank and more recently, Chair of the Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services. Mr. Drummond will discuss the current state of health care in Ontario, and some of the actions he feels are necessary to ensure Ontarians have access to top-quality health care.

"Some Ontarians may grasp at the hope that economic growth or productivity gains will generate the additional wealth needed to pay the bills for health care," Mr. Drummond wrote in the Commission on the Reform of Ontario's Public Services report. "We cannot count on the magic bullets of faster economic growth or rapid productivity gains to finance our health-care needs and wants. Nor, apparently, can we accept higher taxes, a reduction in other government services or greater privatization to square the health-care fiscal accounts."

The Express Scripts Canada Health Benefits Forum will emphasize how a significant portion of annual pharmacy-related waste can be eliminated by activating patients' good intentions to improve common behaviours linked to their use of prescription drugs. The Health Benefits Forum will include a panel discussion on the merits of therapy optimization, and a segment that will describe a plan sponsor's experience and benefits from the implementation of an enhanced pharmacy benefit management (PBM) service.

Pharmacy Benefit Management
Express Scripts Canada's expanded PBM service, which can be added by companies and organizations without changing insurance carriers, applies behavioural sciences to health-care decision-making to more effectively help manage benefit costs and improve health outcomes. Plan members, with the support of their physician, as appropriate, will interact with a team of qualified professionals at Express Scripts Canada to learn about their maintenance medication alternatives so that they can make more informed choices. The result will be decisions that promote improved health outcomes, while often reducing costs for both the member and the member's plan sponsor.

Working in conjunction with the expanded PBM service, an Express Scripts Canada Pharmacy will facilitate the dispensing and delivery of prescription drugs to treat ongoing medical conditions, such as asthma, diabetes high blood pressure and high cholesterol. The prescription is subsequently delivered, via free standard shipping, to patients' homes or to the address they designate.

A skilled team of pharmacists and pharmacy assistants verify the clinical quality of those prescriptions filled. Patients also have access to pharmacists to answer questions about their medications.

With Express Scripts Canada's expanded PBM service, Canadian plan sponsors have access to proven tools to better manage the cost of the prescription drug benefit while providing plan members with an enhanced prescription drug service.

About Express Scripts Canada
Express Scripts Canada, a registered business name of both ESI Canada and Express Scripts Canada Services, each an Ontario partnership, is indirectly owned by Express Scripts, Inc., and is one of Canada's leading providers of health benefits management services. From its corporate headquarters in Mississauga, Ontario, just outside Toronto, Express Scripts Canada provides a full range of integrated pharmacy benefit management (PBM) services to insurers, third-party administrators, plan sponsors and the public sector, including health-claims adjudication and processing services, Home Delivery Pharmacy Services, benefit-design consultation, drug-utilization review, formulary management, and medical and drug-data analysis services, to better facilitate the best possible health outcomes at the lowest possible cost. For more information about Express Scripts Canada, visit its Web site at www.express-scripts.ca.

About Express Scripts
Express Scripts manages more than a billion prescriptions each year for tens of millions of people. On behalf of our clients — employers, health plans, unions and government health programs — we make the use of prescription drugs safer and more affordable. We innovate to enhance patient care, reduce pharmacy-related waste and increase therapy adherence. Building on a strong clinical foundation, we apply our understanding of the behavioral sciences — an approach we call Consumerology® — to make it easier for people to choose better health.

Headquartered in St. Louis, Express Scripts provides integrated pharmacy benefit management services, including network-pharmacy claims processing, home delivery, specialty benefit management, benefit-design consultation, drug-utilization review, formulary management, and medical and drug data analysis services. The company also distributes a full range of biopharmaceutical products and provides extensive cost-management and patient-care services.

For more information, visit www.Express-Scripts.com

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Express Scripts Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including, but not limited to, statements related to the Company's plans, objectives, expectations (financial and otherwise) or intentions. Actual results may differ significantly from those projected or suggested in any forward-looking statements.  Factors that may impact these forward-looking statements can be found in the Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations in the Company's Form 10-Q filed with the SEC on May 10, 2012.  A copy of this form can be found at the Investor Relations section of Express Scripts' Web site at http://www.express-scripts.com/corporate.

We do not undertake any obligation to release publicly any revisions to such forward-looking statements to reflect events or circumstances after the date hereof or to reflect the occurrence of unanticipated events.

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