Intermountain Healthcare, Ascension Health, SSM Health and Trinity Health announced they’ll create their own not-for-profit generic drug company, called Project RX, with the goal of increasing pharmaceutical competition and making “essential generic medications more available and more affordable.”

The systems, which combined control about 300 hospitals in the U.S., said other hospital groups may join the initiative. The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is also involved and may become a purchaser once Project RX is up and running.

“It’s an ambitious plan, but healthcare systems are in the best position to fix the problems in the generic drug market,” Intermountain president and CEO Marc Harrison, MD, said in a statement. "We witness, on a daily basis, how shortages of essential generic medications or egregious cost increases for those same drugs affect our patients. We are confident we can improve the situation for our patients by bringing much needed competition to the generic drug market.”

The new venture will have plenty of customers “ready and eager for its products” within the health systems themselves. By making the supply of generics more predictable, the companies said it can counter current manufacturers’ “unwarranted and arbitrary price increases” and creation of artificial shortages of medications.

An advisory committee will help guide the new company, with members including former CMS Administrator Don Berwick, MD, and former Nebraska Gov. and U.S. Senator Bob Kerrey.