PBMI National Conference

The harm caused by weight-loss drugs have overwhelmed any benefit they may have. The repurposed diabetes drugs like Wegovy (semaglutide) have a strong safety profile, said presented at the annual Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute meeting.

Payers need to reframe how they view obesity as not just a health and wellness issue, but as a progressive chronic disease that needs medication, explained David Skomo, RPh, chief operations officer at WellDyne.

Timothy Mizak and Nicole Bulochnik of Abarca talked about how can PBMs help payers manage costs through a hybrid network model that leverages value-based and other innovative drug contracts at the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute (PBMI) annual meeting in Orlando.

Executives at Arrive Health and OptumRx say they have ironed out many of the problems with real-time benefit checks, which delivers out-of-pocket cost and prior approval information at the time a prescription is being written.

Jeffrey A. Shaman, Ph.D., chief science officer at Coriell Life Sciences, talked about how pharmacogenomics can inform medication management.

Nicole Bulochnik, Vice President of Drug Pricing and Network Strategy at Abarca Health delivers her presentation, "PBM-Payer Partnerships: Insight into Alternative Cost Management Strategies Across Common PBM Levels," during this year's PBMI National Annual Conference in Orlando, FL.

Thus far, value-based contracts for prescription drugs has not been transformative because of the scalability challenge for payers, explained Gregory Warren, FSA, FCA, MAAA, partner and consulting actuary with Axene Health Partners.

Greg Warren, partner and consulting actuary at Axene Health Partners, discussed the many solutions that have been put forth to address the prescription drug challenges that could bring value to healthcare.

Cate Lockhart, MS, PharmD, PhD, Executive Director at the Biologics and Biosimilars Collective Intelligence Consortium covers her presentation "New mAbs on the Block: A Rocking Research Update on Biosimilar Uptake and Benefit Design" which she delivered at this year's PBMI national conference.

Some of the evidence for digital therapeutic suffers from selection bias and relatively short studies, panelists at the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute said today. They also discussed making the flood of data from the digital therapeutics accessible and useful to payers and clinicians.

Michael Agostino, RPh, a registered pharmacist and entrepreneur of Onesto One Advisors, LLC, addressed how his career has been spent over the last few decades during his presentation Sept. 12 at this year's PBMI Annual National Conference in Orlando.

Brandon Newman, an industry veteran, also listed the specialty drug spend, collaboration and real-time optimization as the pharmacy benefit management trends to watch.

Agenda includes sessions on overall trends in the pharmacy benefit management industry, digital therapeutics and biosimilars.

The specialty drug spend and data flow and connectivity were among the themes of the presentations given at the hybrid conference this week in Orlando, Florida.

The new company has developed an app and platform that guides cancer survivors through the experience of dealing with disease.

CVS’ Joshua Fredell, Pharm.D., and Tierra Ford, Pharm.D., described how an integrated, proactive approach can engage members and rein in costs.

Paula Bickley and Ashleigh Burdette of Biologics by McKesson described a program that identifies 1 in 3 patients as being at risk of nonadherence and then provides support to keep them on track and identify side effects and other problems early.

Clinical appropriateness, not the cost of a drug, is the first consideration in formulary decisions, said Katie Thompson and Katie Deckelbaum of Express Scripts.

Confidio VP Thatcher Sloan described how applying formulary and utilization management effectiveness calculations to drug costs managed by PBMs may paint a truer picture of their economic value to their clients.

IQVIA's Doug Long shared a torrent of data illustrating the effects of the pandemic — and its unintended effects, such as far fewer flu cases — on utilization, diagnostic visits and drug prescriptions. Whether there will be a 2021-22 flu season is one of the many wild cards in the months ahead.

WellDyne executives David Skomo, RPh, and Nick Page told PBMI Annual Conference attendees that matching communication channels and messages with patient preference is the way to engage patients and increase adherence.

Abarca’s Javier Gonzalez discussed the advantage of health plans insourcing PBM services in an à la carte fashion.

Government regulations are designed to encourage data fluidity in healthcare, which could "radically empower" consumers, said Kim Diehl-Boyd, CoverMyMeds vice president of industry relations and government affairs, at the 2021 Annual National Conference of the Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute.

Amazon is gearing up for an era that includes telehealth and home testing, but the former FDA commissioner says the new model is more than a logistics challenge and that healthcare companies will prevail.

OptumRx SVP Kerri Tanner, RPh, Pharm.D., said management of specialty medications cannot be delivered in pieces and that innovation is needed to curb the tendency toward fragmentation.

The former FDA commissioner's presentation on Monday will kick off three-day meeting that will cover contracting, drug benefit design, cost containment and a wide range of other pharmacy benefit topics.