The Joint Budget Committee reviewed and approved updates to the March 2025 pharmacy formulary and related medical drug recommendations, including the addition of several biosimilars that will replace the brand-name drug Stelara on the state formulary.

Grant Wallace, director of the Employee Benefits Division, told the committee that the formulary changes include “Yaxentik and the next 3. Those are the biosimilars for Stelara that we are rolling on to our formulary.” He said the biosimilars would take effect around June 1. “So these would go into effect, 06/01 ish,” Wallace said.

Wallace also explained the parallel medical-side listing for treatments that begin as an intravenous infusion and later move to pharmacy coverage, saying the committee needs both classifications “to make sure that we have both of those covered on both sides.”

After Wallace’s presentation, the chair said, “Seeing no questions, this item is without objection, reviewed and approved,” indicating committee approval of both the pharmacy formulary item and the medical drug recommendations.

Committee members did not ask further questions on the items recorded in the transcript. The changes described by Wallace emphasize substitution of lower-cost biosimilars for the brand-name Stelara and administrative reclassification to ensure consistent coverage for treatments that start as clinical infusions and later transition to pharmacy dispensed doses.

The Joint Budget Committee did not record additional details about individual biosimilar product codes beyond the examples Wallace cited, nor did the transcript include a formal recorded roll-call vote; approval was announced by the chair as taken without objection.