Drug industry technology company Kalderos, which has struggled to launch its 340B Pay service to let drug companies provide 340B pricing as a post-purchase rebate instead of as an up-front discount, has a new chief executive officer.
The company announced the appointment of Brent Dover as CEO in a news release this morning. It said Dover most recently served as CEO at Commure, a California-based software company best known for Listrunner, a collaboration-improvement app for health care clinicians. The news release said Dover previously served as president both of Health Catalyst, a health care data analytics company, and Medicity a company acquired by Aetna in 2011 that helped health systems, hospitals, and physician practices exchange information securely and compliantly.
Dover succeeds Jeremy Docken, who founded Kalderos in 2016 and remains a member of the Kalderos board, the company said. Docken’s new title is chief strategy officer, it said.
“Kalderos is using technology to solve challenges in a space where the tech infrastructure has been lacking,” Dover said. “By connecting previously siloed data with a platform approach that builds trust between stakeholders, the company is uniquely positioned with a remarkable product-market fit. I am honored to have been invited to lead Kalderos through its next phase of rapid growth.”
Kalderos announced 340B Pay in August 2020. No drug company is known to have contracted with Kalderos to use the service. 340B provider groups say this method of providing 340B pricing is illegal and are fighting against it.
Late last year, drug manufacturer Clovis Oncology appeared to be poised to require customers to use 340B Pay for 340B drug purchases. Kalderos said in late November 2021 that Clovis “has decided not to implement our 340B Pay solution at this time, though we continue️ to️ collaborate️ with️ them more broadly.”
“We have other manufacturers interested in moving forward with 340B Pay,” Kalderos said.
Nearly 220 members of the U.S. House asked former U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar in November 2020 “to make clear that manufacturers may not implement a 340B rebate model without approval.” In January 2021, U.S. Sens. Patty Murray (D-Wash.) and Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) told Azar in a letter they “believe a rebate model violates both the spirit and the letter of the law” and called on HHS “to take action to prevent its implementation.”
Kalderos sued HHS and the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) in October 2021. It asked the federal district court in Washington, D.C., to strike down HRSA’s May 2021 policy determination that drug manufacturers may not place any conditions on 340B pricing on covered outpatient drugs.
Kalderos said in its complaint to the court that it “has largely been unable to move forward with its [340B Pay] model, with multiple manufacturers stating that they would contract with Kalderos for services, but cannot in light of [HRSA’s] policy position.”
A judge last week granted the federal government’s motion to pause proceedings in Kalderos’ cases until a federal appeals court hands down a decision in drug manufacturers Novartis and United Therapeutics’ (UT) 340B contract pharmacy suits. It could take months for the circuit court to issue an opinion.
