Steven G. Avey Biography

Steven G. Avey received both his bachelor degree and his master of science degree in pharmacy administration from the University of Utah. He began his pharmacy career in the retail sector, and owned and operated Avey’s Medical Village Pharmacy for nine years. His early-career focus was on geriatrics in the long-term care setting, psychiatry and pediatrics.

After completion of graduate school his focus changed to managed care pharmacy. He was instrumental in setting up a Pharmacy Benefit Management (PBM) division with a mail order pharmacy for Smith’s Food & Drugs in Salt Lake City.

In the late 1990’s Avey worked for Prospective Health Inc. and helped establish and run its data services division in Scottsdale, Ariz. Today, this company is known as Relay Health.

In 2000, after serving as treasurer and president of the Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy (AMCP), he was hired as the executive director of its foundation. For five years, Avey set up education and research programs, assisting pharmacy and therapeutic (P&T) committees across the country, improving their assessment of new drug therapies and developing quality improvement measures in overall managed care practice.

In 2005, Avey left FMCP to become the vice president managed care at Partners Rx Management in Scottsdale, Ariz. That year, the Academy honored him by renaming their prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award to the Steven G. Avey Award, recognizing his achievements in quality measurement programs and improving the drug assessment processes in the U.S.

He joined RegenceRx as a vice president and worked as a part of senior management to assess the services, network rates and rebates to determine how RegenceRx could better serve their health plan. It was decided by senior management and the board of directors of Cambia Health to develop a full-service request for proposal, and perform a search for a nationally-recognized PBM with whom RegenceRx could contract for all services, except clinical and formulary. Avey assisted RegenceRx and Cambia through the entire process, which ended in a contract with Catalyst Rx. Employees of RegenceRx were transitioned to Catalyst on April 1, 2012.

In April, Avey was transitioned from RegenceRx to Catalyst Rx to work in the area of specialty pharmaceuticals. One month later, SXC purchased Catalyst Rx and renamed the company Catamaran.  Avey then served as senior director, specialty pharmacy, for Catamaran.

In January 2013, Avery was named vice president, specialty pharmacy for MedImpact in San Diego. In this role, he’ll set the overall business strategy in the specialty arena and develop a team to support MedImpact’s clients as they forge into the new era of substantial specialty usage and spend.