PBMI Innovator Arpit Patel, Pharm.D.

All of his cousins, jokes Arpit Patel, Pharm.D., went into medicine. But after a pharmacist dispensed some career advice during a visit to his high school, Patel selected the pharmacy route into healthcare instead, affixing Pharm.D. to his name instead of M.D., working on formularies in the early days of Medicaid Part D, following a career path in managed care pharmacy that landed him in his current position at MedImpact as the senior vice president of trade relations and supply chain.

At MedImpact, Patel says he works on a wide range of projects, from contracting with pharmaceutical manufacturers to developing the economic case that MedImpact's account teams present to clients and consultants. He believes his experience and expertise make a big difference.

“I think one of the challenges in this industry is that without that level of expertise, you tend to have a very superficial response to direct questions,” Patel said in an interview with Managed Healthcare Executive (MHE).

Patel was recognized as one of six Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute (PBMI) Innovators. He was featured in the August 2026 issue of MHE along with the other innovators and will be honored at the 2026 PBMI Annual National Conference, which is being held Sept. 10-11 in Orlando, Florida.

Patel immigrated to the United States from India at age nine and grew up in Nutley. He recalled being drawn to pharmacy once he learned it involved more than dispensing prescriptions. A rotation in the managed care organization at Medco Health Solutions, reviewing appeals and grievances, gave him his first look at that side of the industry. After a brief stint at Walgreens, he took a position with a Medicare organization in 2007 and has built his career around formulary strategy since.

"I always looked at the formulary as sort of the value that healthcare can provide," Patel said in an interview with Managed Healthcare Executive. He said his team weighs adherence, discontinuation rates and quality of life alongside cost when deciding which drugs to place on a formulary, rather than relying on financial considerations alone.

Much of that thinking, Patel said, comes back to how rebates function in the current system. He argued that members rarely benefit from the discounts negotiated on their behalf because their cost sharing at the pharmacy counter is based on a drug's high list price rather than its net cost after rebates. MedImpact's approach, he says, is

Patel described MedImpact as an independent PBM that works with health systems, smaller PBMs, retail chains, employers and health plans without steering them toward an affiliated specialty pharmacy or a one-size-fits-all rebate structure. He pointed to the company's wholesale entity, which buys biosimilars at scale and sells them to any specialty pharmacy, and to newer programs pairing prescriptions for glucagon-like peptide 1 weight loss drugs with support from a registered dietitian to address adherence.