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Cigna unveiled a new effort that aims to expand insurance coverage for weight loss drugs by limiting how much health plans and employers spend on highly popular weight loss drugs each year. 
Cigna’s pharmacy benefits management unit will limit spending increases for their treatments to a maximum of 15% annually, a company spokesperson told CNBC.
The move comes as many insurers mull whether they should cover those treatments or drop them from their plans altogether due to the high costs of those drugs.

Injection pens of Novo Nordisk’s weight-loss drug Wegovy are shown in this photo illustration in Oslo, Norway, Nov. 21, 2023.
Victoria Klesty | Reuters

Cigna on Thursday said it will limit how much health plans and employers spend on weight loss drugs each year in a bid to expand insurance coverage for those highly popular treatments.
The move comes as many insurers mull whether they should cover those drugs or drop them from their plans altogether due to their high costs. Americans have flocked to the treatments, along with similar diabetes drugs, despite their hefty list prices of roughly $1,000 per month or up to $15,000 per year.

The effort by insurance giant Cigna could make weight loss treatments more accessible. Most insurance plans cover diabetes treatments.
Cigna’s pharmacy benefits management unit will limit spending increases for weight loss and diabetes drugs to a maximum of 15% annually, a company spokesperson told CNBC. Currently, some health plans are seeing spending on the drugs rise 40% to 50% annually, according to the spokesperson. 
As part of that effort, Cigna’s Evernorth unit struck agreements with drugmakers Novo Nordisk and Eli Lilly, the spokesperson said. Cigna did not provide further details on what those agreements look like.
A spokesperson for Eli Lilly on Thursday said employers should “prioritize solutions that facilitate access to comprehensive and patient-centered” obesity care, given how the condition affects people around the world.
A Novo Nordisk spokesperson on Thursday said the company works with all payers “as part of our commitment to expand patient access to anti-obesity medicines.” They deferred CNBC to Cigna for details on the insurance spending cap.

The company called the effort the health-care industry’s “first financial guarantee” for coverage of the drugs, which are also known as GLP-1s. Those medicines treat weight loss and diabetes by mimicking one or more hormones produced in the gut to suppress appetite and regulate blood sugar.
Cigna said providing “financial predictability” through a cost cap will allow health plans and employers to better plan to manage GLP-1 spending. That, in turn, would help ensure broader access for eligible patients.

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Adam Kautzner, president of pharmacy benefits manager Express Scripts, said during the company’s investor day that the market for GLP-1s could grow to $100 billion by the end of the decade. Express scripts is owned by the Evernorth division. He called that a “completely unsustainable number” and said that Cigna’s insurance clients are “continuing to look to us for help.”
“Many of them want to preserve access for patients or expand access for patients to treat diabetes. But at the same time, you are seeing some that are pulling back as well,” Kautzner said during the event.
An October survey of 205 companies by the International Foundation of Employee Benefit Plans found 76% of respondents provided GLP-1 drug coverage for diabetes, versus only 27% that provided coverage for weight loss. But 13% of plan sponsors indicated they were considering coverage for weight loss.
The effort expands an existing program under the Evernorth unit called EncircleRx, which targets patients with diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease. 
Health plans and employers pay Cigna a separate monthly fee for that program. The program includes support for patients on the drugs, which are supposed to be accompanied by lifestyle changes such as diet and increased exercise.
Cigna is also working with Omada Health on services to help patients with behavior changes.

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Walmart, Target and Kroger are trying to attract shoppers with same-day delivery offerings.
The retailers are trying to stand out on convenience, not just price.
Target is rolling out a new paid membership service that includes home deliveries as a key perk, and Walmart is offering home deliveries earlier in the morning.

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As retailers compete for grocery shoppers, some of the big names in the business have zeroed in on the same strategy: get deliveries to customers’ doors quickly.
This week, Target announced a new paid membership program with free same-day home deliveries as a key perk. Walmart expanded its same-day delivery offering to allow shoppers to get online purchases dropped off earlier in the morning.

And Kroger said Thursday that home deliveries helped propel its more than 10% year-over-year growth in digital sales and 24% year-over-year jump in delivery sales in the most recent quarter.
With same-day deliveries, the three retailers are not only trying to outmatch one another on convenience. They’re also turning brick-and-mortar locations — and the short distance to customers’ homes — into their biggest advantage over Amazon and other e-commerce players, said Michael Baker, a retail analyst for D.A. Davidson.
“This, over the last few years, has completely flipped the switch and turned stores into an asset,” he said.
Walmart is the largest grocer in the U.S., with 23.6% of market share in 2023, according to Numerator, a market research firm. Kroger is second, with 10.1% of market share. Target is the ninth largest grocer by market share, with 2.7%, the firm estimated.
With Target’s announcement this week, Walmart, Target and Kroger will all have paid membership programs with home deliveries as one of the benefits. The subscription services have similar price points and minimums, such as requiring customers to spend at least $35, to get goods dropped at their homes.

Target Circle 360, which launches in early April, will cost $99 per year, but will be $49 for customers who have the retailer’s credit card and for those who sign up during a promotion timed for the program’s launch.
Walmart+ costs $98 per year or $12.95 on a monthly basis, with perks like gas discounts along with free shipping and free grocery deliveries. And Kroger has a program called Boost, which has a $59 per year and $99 per year option. The higher-priced plan includes free delivery within two hours on all orders of $35 or more.
Walmart and Kroger have not shared how many subscribers they have. Target said it has more than 100 million members of Target Circle, its free loyalty program, but it’s unclear how many will sign up for Target Circle 360.
Each of the retailers have tried to stand out from the pack. Target, for example, said it can deliver some online orders in as little as an hour. Walmart said Thursday that it will start making on-demand deliveries as early as 6 a.m. local time. It previously started them at 8 a.m.
Membership programs help offset delivery and shipping costs by charging fees, but they also allow retailers to collect more customer data that can be used to personalize offers or support their growing advertising businesses, D.A. Davidson’s Baker said. They can help drive more frequent online orders, too.
For Walmart, the services are a way to compete in other ways than just price. Walmart CFO John David Rainey has spoken on earnings calls about how Walmart customers are increasingly choosing the big-box retailer for convenience, like its curbside pickup or home delivery options. Those services may also matter more as Walmart tries to retain higher-income shoppers it’s attracted over the past two years while food prices were high.
At Target, same-day deliveries could help to boost sales. The cheap chic retailer’s comparable sales have declined three quarters in a row, and the company expects them to fall again this quarter. It has posted year-over-year digital sales declines for each of the past four quarters.
As customers buy less discretionary merchandise, Target has tried to sell more food and household essentials. Those same items, such as paper towels and cartons of eggs, tend to be the ones that people replenish frequently or need to order in a pinch for a home delivery.
Kroger has used online delivery to break into new regions of the country, including Florida, without opening a single grocery store. It’s built huge fulfillment centers that are powered by automation and robotics from U.K.-based company, Ocado.
On a call with investors on Thursday, Kroger CEO Rodney McMullen described digital as “an important growth accelerator,” and said the company expects another year of double-digit sales growth. He said digital delivered more than $12 billion in sales for 2023. That’s still a small piece of Kroger’s annual revenue, which totaled about $150 billion for the year.
He said digitally engaged customers spend more with Kroger and support growth of its ads business.
McMullen said fierce competition with other grocers, such as Costco and Amazon, has made the grocer race to keep up with customers’ shopping preferences and try to acquire Albertsons. The FTC sued to block that deal last month. He said on the earnings call that Kroger will defend the merger in litigation and expects hearings to start in mid-to-late summer.
He said the company is getting closer to turning its online business into a money maker.
“We’ve always told everybody job one is to make sure we don’t lose the digital customer, and job two is our responsibility to figure out how to make sure that customer is profitable,” he said.
While delivery will help the three retailers overcome unique issues, they still share a common challenge of winning over shoppers who aren’t spending as freely. Walmart and Target both beat Wall Street’s sales expectations for the holiday quarter, but said shoppers are still very value-focused.
Even as Kroger’s shares rose on Thursday, McMullen echoed that on the company’s earnings call.
“They [customers] tell us they’re feeling better more so than their behavior is changing so far,” he said. More

United executives said the carrier can’t grow as fast as it planned due to Boeing’s delivery delays.
The airline expected to get 77 Boeing 737 Max 8 and 9 planes this year but now forecasts it will receive 56 of them.
United managers told pilots that it will pause hiring new aviators in May and June.

A United Airlines 737 Max 8
Leslie Josephs | CNBC

United Airlines will pause pilot hiring this spring because of Boeing delivery delays, the latest effect of the plane maker’s problems on one of its biggest customers.
New hire classes will be paused in May and June and will likely resume in July, Marc Champion, vice president of flight operations, and Kirk Limacher, vice president of flight ops planning and development, told staff Thursday in a memo, which was seen by CNBC.

“We wanted to let you know that United will slow the pace of pilot hires this year due to continued new aircraft certification and manufacturing delays at Boeing,” they wrote.
Boeing declined to comment.
Boeing has been struggling with a host of production flaws like incorrectly drilled holes on the fuselage and the fallout from a door plug that blew out of a nearly new Boeing Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines on Jan. 5, which prompted a brief grounding of the aircraft type earlier this winter. Bolts appeared to be missing on the plane when it left Boeing’s factory, a preliminary investigation found.
United was contracted to receive 43 Boeing 737 Max 8 and 34 Max 9 models this year, but expects to get 37 and 19 of them, respectively, according to a company filing. It also had contracted deliveries of 80 Max 10s in 2024, the largest model in the bestselling Max family, but expects none of them this year. The plane hasn’t yet been certified yet by the Federal Aviation Administration and is years behind schedule.
United’s CEO, Scott Kirby, in January said the carrier is making a fleet plan without the Max 10.

“As you know, United has hundreds of new planes on order and while we remain on a path to be the fastest growing airline in the industry, we just won’t grow as fast as we thought we would in 2024 due to continued delays at Boeing,” Champion and Limacher said Thursday. “For example, we had contractual deliveries for 80 MAX 10s this year alone – but those aircraft aren’t even certified yet and it’s impossible to know when they will arrive.”

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Other U.S. carriers have slowed pilot growth this year following a hiring spree in the past few years, after encouraging staff to take early retirement when demand slumped in the pandemic.
A shortage of aviators along with slow aircraft deliveries from both Boeing and Airbus as they faced supply chain constraints have helped drive up airfares.
American Airlines hired about 2,000 pilots last year and expects to add around 1,300 this year, CEO Robert Isom said at an investor presentation in New York on Monday.
“That’s slowing down a little bit, but … we have a considerable number of retirements,” he said. “We will be hiring for the foreseeable future at levels like that.”
Delta Air Lines is halving its pilot hiring this year after bringing on a record 2,400 in 2023, and Southwest Airlines will pause pilot hiring after a new-hire class this month, a spokesman said. Some carriers like Spirit Airlines have stopped pilot hiring altogether to slow their growth and reduce costs.

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Mattel is facing activist pressure from Barington Capital, particularly around its strategy with the Fisher-Price and American Girl brands.
The toymaker’s CEO, Ynon Kreiz, said Barbie is the blueprint for how it can take “timeless brands and make them timely.”
“It’s not whether our brands resonate outside of stores,” he said. “Because they do. We’ve proven it. It’s whether we can do it because we are doing it and we have been executing very successfully. It’s about doing it at scale.”

A scene from “Barbie.”
Courtesy: Warner Bros.

If there’s one thing Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz wants shareholders to take away on Thursday, it’s the power of Barbie.
As the toymaker faces activist pressure from Barington Capital, particularly around its strategy with the Fisher-Price and American Girl brands, it’s putting forth Barbie as a blueprint of what’s possible at the toy company, with an investor presentation Thursday.

“Our job is to take these timeless brands and make them timely,” Kreiz told CNBC ahead of the presentation.
Since taking the helm of Mattel in 2018, Kreiz has initiated a turnaround plan for the company that has seen the revival of major brands, including Barbie, and a 44% increase in share price. He’s touted the Mattel “playbook,” the company’s strategy for taking beloved franchises and making them available to consumers across multiple segments.
With “Barbie” — the eponymous film, directed by Greta Gerwig and nominated for eight Oscars this year — that plan has come to fruition.
“The idea was to find ways to create multiple touch points, to build strong toy brands,” said Kreiz. “And once you have the established fan base and cultural resonance around brands, this is where you extend them to other experiences, other products, other opportunities to connect with your fans.”
“The ‘Barbie’ movie was really a manifestation of that very much a showcase of how we think about the opportunity in front of us,” he said.

Gerwig’s “Barbie” generated nearly $1.5 billion at the global box office by tapping into pop culture relevance — both the reverence and revulsion for the toy brand felt by consumers for more than six decades. The film’s success led to around $150 million in related toys and consumer products sales, like sweatshirts emblazoned with the phrase “I am Kenough” and Mattel’s share of the movie ticket proceeds.
“We’re now thinking of people who buy our products not just as consumers but as fans,” Kreiz said.
Starting in July, the movie will go on a 37-city tour to different music venues, accompanied by the Sinfonietta, an all-women’s orchestra. And then there’s this Sunday’s Academy Awards, for which “Barbie” is nominated for acting awards, best original song, best costume design and best picture, among others.
“Whether we’re talking about products, entertainment, television, music, publishing, digital gaming, all of it we’re creating an ecosystem of true franchise flywheel,” said Josh Silverman, chief franchise officer at Mattel.

Following in Barbie’s footsteps

While Kreiz has acknowledged that future film and television projects may not reach the same lofty heights as the Margot Robbie-led flick, he noted that “Barbie” offers a template for expanding Mattel’s intellectual property outside of the toy aisle.
“It’s not whether our brands resonate outside of stores,” he said. “Because they do. We’ve proven it. It’s whether we can do it because we are doing it and we have been executing very successfully. It’s about doing it at scale.”
This is especially important for the company’s Fisher-Price and American Girl brands, which have been in the midst of their own transformations for several years.
A combination of changing consumer purchasing habits and the disappearance of Toys R Us led to significant sales declines for both brands in recent years. In just the last year, net global sales for American Girl were down 9%. For the company’s infant, toddler and preschool segment, which includes Fisher-Price, sales were down 10%.
Activist investor Barington Capital wrote a letter to Kreiz ahead of the company’s February earnings report that said it believes “these brands are now detracting from the success at Mattel’s other segments, and hurting shareholder value.”
Mattel, however, still sees value in continued investment in these brands and had already begun efforts to revitalize American Girl and Fisher-Price prior to the activist investor’s February letter, Kreiz said.
American Girl was seeing sales weaknesses even before the pandemic forced retail locations to shutter. Copycat dolls that looked like the iconic American Girl dolls packed shelves for a fraction of the price, and the once-alluring experiential shopping associated with the brand’s flagship stores had dissipated.
While American Girl dolls can be purchased online, e-commerce hadn’t historically been Mattel’s main strategy. Much of its marketing was put toward promoting retail stores with their cafes and doll hair salons and its mailed catalog.
The American Girl brand did emerge from the pandemic leaner, with fewer retail locations, a bigger push for direct-to-consumer online shopping and a renewed focus on modernizing its dolls for a new generation. Sales in 2021 even rose 5%. However, they fell again in both 2022 and 2023.
When it comes to to the American Girl brand, Kreiz admits that the challenges “were not product driven,” but rather an issue with its commercial strategy.
He said the brand will see growth in its flagship stores, more product innovation and expanded licensed entertainment going forward, including a partnership with Disney princesses and a film project with Paramount.

American Girl doll by Mattel
Source: Mattel

“We think there’s some real opportunities to continue to grow the brand and extend the story that exists within American Girl thoughtfully, and we want to do it authentically,” said Silverman. “The franchise is very much the bridge between toys and entertainment.”
Mattel executives remained tightlipped about what to expect from an upcoming American Girl movie, which currently does not have a release date.
“We’re working closely right now with a writer to unlock that story,” said Lisa McKnight, Mattel’s chief brand officer. “We believe it will be a great opportunity for the brand when the film comes out.”

Where Fisher-Price fits in

Amid a slew of film projects, including a Hot Wheels flick with with J.J. Abram’s Bad Robot, a Major Matt Mason movie starring Tom Hanks, and a Lily Collins-led Polly Pocket film, written and directed by Lena Dunham, Mattel is revamping several of its preschool entertainment properties.
Starting this fall, the company is relaunching Barney with an animated series, with a product line to follow in 2025. Marc Forster (“Quantum of Solace” and “Finding Neverland”) has also been tapped to direct and produce a film based on the Thomas & Friends franchise.
“We’re going to evaluate, curate, incubate and relaunch properties in the preschool space with a full franchise capabilities,” Silverman said.
These brands fall within Mattel’s billion-dollar infant, toddler and preschool division, in which the company has been trimming fat and emphasizing innovative ways to grow over the last few years.
“It’s a big business, and it’s a complex business,” said McKnight. “And, so, what we’ve done over the past few months is really gotten under the hood and acknowledge that there’s sort of two fundamental aspects. There’s the core of the business, which is for infants and toddlers, [where] parents are really the the purchasers. And then there’s a preschool entertainment business. This is really driven by kid demand and fueled by content.”
Fisher-Price makes up the bulk of the total division, contributing around 70% to 80% of the division’s revenue annually. In 2023, net sales for Fisher-Price were around $850 million, a 9% drop from the year prior.
Weighing heavily on Fisher-Price are two segments that Mattel is actively exiting — Power Wheels, battery operated ride-on vehicles, and baby gear. Kreiz said Mattel doesn’t have a “unique advantage” when it comes to these items and faces steep competition for market share. He also noted that much of the losses in the infant, toddler and preschool division were driven by those exits.
Meanwhile, Mattel is working to bring more innovative product to the more than 90-year-old brand, even tailoring the color and material of children’s developmental toys to be more “aesthetically attractive” to younger parents.
“We’re starting to look at the fabric choices and the color palettes for those items … that work nicely with with home decor,” McKnight said, noting that millennial parents often want baby toys that better match their interior decorating styles.
Mattel is also introducing a new line to the Fisher-Price portfolio of wood toys, launching exclusively at Walmart in North America this spring and globally in the second half of 2024.
“It’s a good looking product that people feel good having out in a display, and it’s made from sustainable materials which is also very important to this customer,” McKnight said. More

Rich Paul’s’ Klutch Sports Group is forming a strategic partnership with trading platform Robinhood.
Paul, best known as LeBron James’ longtime agent, will join as a strategic advisor to Robinhood.
Robinhood is looking to expand its reach beyond the tech and finance space and into sports and entertainment.

Rich Paul attends a basketball game between the National Basketball Association’s Los Angeles Lakers and the Boston Celtics at Staples Center in Los Angeles on Feb. 23, 2020.
Allen Berezovsky | Getty Images Entertainment | Getty Images

Robinhood is partnering with Klutch Sport Group, LeBron James’ agent Rich Paul’s firm, as the financial services company looks to expand its reach into sports, entertainment and media, the companies announced Thursday.
As part of the deal, Paul join as a strategic advisor to Robinhood. He will work closely with Robinhood CEO Vlad Tenev to identify new partnership opportunities in the sports and entrepreneurship space.

“We’re massive sports fans at Robinhood and we know our customers are as well,” Tenev told CNBC. “Working with Rich and the team at Klutch Sports, it’s really a way to get the Robinhood brand out there to a wider audience and partner with athletes and organizations that are aligned with our customer needs.”
Paul, who founded Klutch in 2012, represents some of the biggest names in sports, including James. In recent years, the group has expanded to connect teams, leagues and properties with global brands for partnerships.
Paul sits on the boards of United Talent Agency and Live Nation.
“I look forward to helping guide Robinhood as they broaden their reach into new markets and spaces,” Paul said in a statement.
Klutch said it has been connecting Robinhood executives with teams, owners and athletes as the company looks to expand its reach beyond tech and finance. For example, Klutch helped facilitate a three-year jersey patch deal between Robinhood and the National Basketball Association’s Washington Wizards in October.

The partnership is already paying off, according to Tenev. He said brand awareness for Robinhood has increased in the entire Washington D.C. Metro area since the partnership was announced.
During NBA All-Star Weekend, Robinhood did partnerships with NBA players Draymond Green and Trae Young and the WNBA’s A’ja Wilson — all represented by Klutch — around the company’s marketing of gold investment.
Robinhood also collaborated with jewelry make Ben Baller on a gold chain to help steer people to the event.
Tenev said he was drawn to Klutch because Robinhood’s story resonates with Paul’s background.
“He built up his business and his brand from nothing — from selling vintage jerseys in the Akron airport,” he said. “When you think about what Robinhood represents, it represents access and entrepreneurship.”
Robinhood, the trading and investing platform, has said it has introduced tens of millions of first-time investors to the markets. The company, which bills itself as a more accessible investing option, has said its users are more racially diverse than those of incumbent brokerages.
Tenev also addressed the recent surge in the value of cryptocurrency, attributing the rise in part due to customers investing in ETFs that were previously unable to hold crypto exposure.
“You’re starting to see it more mainstream and getting integrated further and further into the traditional financial system,” he said. “I think Robinhood can play a leading role in the acceleration of kind of crypto and traditional finance, merging together and making it more useful over time.”
The trading platform’s stock is up nearly 30% this year.
Correction: Rich Paul is joining Robinhood as a strategic advisor. A previous version of this story misstated his position with the company.
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