The Joint Budget Committee reviewed and approved the committee’s March 2025 pharmacy formulary, adding multiple biosimilars to the plan and reclassifying several medications.

Grant Wallace, director of the Employee Benefits Division, told committee members the packet (Exhibit C-1) reflected a routine review and movement of medications. He highlighted the addition of Yaxentik and three other biosimilars to the formulary as replacements for the brand drug Stelara. “These would go into effect, 06/01 ish, if not a little bit sooner,” Wallace said, adding the division is “trying to favor the lower cost biosimilars.”

Wallace also noted a reclassification shown in the middle of the exhibit but did not expand on specifics during the presentation. After Wallace’s presentation, the committee chair said there were no questions and that the item was “without objection, reviewed and approved.”

The changes are administrative updates to the state health plan’s pharmacy formulary; Wallace described them as a normal review and movement of medications rather than a new program or benefit expansion. The committee did not record individual roll-call votes for this item, noting only that it had been approved without objection.