Interviews

Helen Bygrave, MD, chronic diseases advisor for the Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF; Doctors Without Borders) Access Campaign, explains how the campaign is aiming to eliminate the threat of cryptococcal meningitis among persons living with HIV by 2030.

There’s more interest than ever in performance-based payments as they become less novel and frightening, said Jane F. Barlow, MD, MPH, MBA.

Brian T. Kelly, MD, MA, FACAAI, Midwest Allergy and Asthma Clinic, and the American College of Allergy, Asthma & Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting program chair, discusses how this year’s conference content will demonstrate the joint themes of innovation and diversity, as well as what exciting developments presenters and attendees alike should watch for.

Peter Hotez, MD, PhD, FASTMH, professor of pediatrics and molecular virology and dean, National School of Tropical Medicine, Baylor College of Medicine, and codirector, Texas Children’s Hospital Center for Vaccine Development, addresses the approval of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine for children aged 5 to 11 and emphasized its benefits far outweigh the rare possibility of myocarditis.

As time goes on, we're finding out more and more benefits of sodium glucose co-transporter 2 (SGLT2) inhibitors, said Robert A. Gabbay, MD, PhD, the chief science and medical officer at the American Diabetes Association.

Oncology drugs are a huge driver of cost, but there’s a lot of innovation happening in the space to improve care and outcomes for patients, said Michelle Booth, PharmD, director of specialty clinical solutions at Magellan Rx Management.

Specialty pharmaceuticals have a lot of promise, but patients have to go through hoops to get them. Technology can improve interoperability and create a better patient experience, said Jim Adams, chief innovation officer, AllianceRx Walgreens Prime.

Robert A. Gabbay, MD, PhD, the chief science and medical officer at the American Diabetes Association (ADA), discusses the most important takeaways from recent guidance on type 1 diabetes from the ADA and European Association for the Study of Diabetes (EASD).

Specialty pharmacy was well positioned during the pandemic because it has a history of embracing digital solutions, said Heather Bonome, PharmD, director of pharmacy at the accreditation agency URAC.

In the years since its inception, debates around the 340B program have centered on whether savings actually benefit the underserved as intended. A new paper in The American Journal of Managed Care® analyzed secondary data on 340B participation and uncompensated care provision from general acute care and critical access hospitals between 2003 and 2015.

Some policy reforms can help incentivize more use of value-based contracts, but overall an area that needs more work is value-based contracts with pharmaceutical companies, said Steven Peskin, MD, executive director, director of population health, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

After the public health emergency is over, there will likely remain incentive to keep some administration of specialty therapies at home, in a less acute setting of care, said Lance Grady, market access practice director, Avalere Health.

Amanda Ely, CEO, introduces us to The Children's HIV Association (CHIVA) of the United Kingdom and Ireland and details how the experiences of young persons living with HIV differ from those who acquire the virus as adults.

The WISDOM study—Women Informed to Screen Depending On Measures of risk—was launched to test a personalized approach to screening compared to annual mammograms. Funmi Olopade, MD, FACP, is a professor of Medicine and Human Genetics and founding director of the Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics and Global Health at the University of Chicago Medical Center, and a co-investigator of WISDOM. She discussed how the COVID-19 pandemic actually helped increase participation in the WISDOM study and what it means for future trials.

Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey has been involved in a number of value-based cancer care initiatives that will be highlighted during an upcoming Asembia session, said Steven Peskin, MD, MBA, executive director, director of population health, Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey.

In 2 sessions at the Asembia 2021 Specialty Pharmacy Summit, George Van Antwerp, MBA, managing director, Deloitte Consulting, will provide a look at the future of specialty pharmacy and health equity in pharmacy.

The proposal to allow HHS to negotiate Medicare Part D drug prices is relatively realistic although the outcome will vary a lot drug by drug and class by class, said Melissa Andel, MPP, vice president of health policy at CommonHealth Solutions.

The benefit of real-world evidence is that it provides more data on subpopulations and diverse populations, said Christina Barrington, vice president of pharmacy programs at Priority Health.

Jason Myers, PhD, CEO of the New Zealand AIDS Foundation, delves into how services related to HIV and AIDS in New Zealand—treatment and prevention, and now holistic services—have been spurred to expansion in recent years.

Novel financial concepts will help to ensure sustainable access to gene and cell therapies, which may help reduce disparities, said Jane F. Barlow, MD, MPH, MBA, senior advisor, FoCUS Project, MIT Center for Biomedical Innovation, and executive vice president and chief clinical officer at Real Endpoints.

There are potential ways that precision medicine could exacerbate disparities, but it should be used to guide people to the right treatments, said Nick Page, chief clinical and strategy officer, and Patty Taddei-Allen, PharmD, MBA, BCACP, BCGP, vice president of clinical programs and services, WellDyne.

Evan L. Stepp, MD, FCCP, CPE, a pulmonologist at National Jewish Health, discusses an apparent change in attitudes among patients in the wake of 2019’s e-cigarette or vaping use–associated lung injury (EVALI) crisis.

The WISDOM study—Women Informed to Screen Depending On Measures of risk—was launched to test a personalized approach to screening compared to annual mammograms. Funmi Olopade, MD, FACP, is a professor of Medicine and Human Genetics and founding director of the Center for Clinical Cancer Genetics and Global Health at the University of Chicago Medical Center, and a co-investigator of WISDOM. She is an expert on understanding the etiology and genomic basis of cancer progression in diverse populations and has published extensively on both genetic and non-genetic risk factors for breast cancer. She discussed overcoming early challenges of low enrollment of Black women in the study.

Future asthma guidelines need to focus more on the unmet needs of the patients whose severe asthma is not well controlled, said Tonya Winders, MBA, CEO and president of the Allergy & Asthma Network.

Paradoxical bronchospasm, although rare, should be recognized more often in spirometry tests, said pulmonologist Malvika Kaul, MD, who discussed study findings from a population of veterans with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) and asthma, where the possibly life-threatening condition was not picked up in lung tests.

Multiple trastuzumab biosimilars were approved and launched very quickly in the United States, which sets up an interesting scenario in the market to see the nuance of having multiple options available, said Cate Lockhart, PhD, PharmD, MS, program, director, Biologics and Biosimilars Collective Intelligence Consortium (BBCIC).

Large health system pharmacies need to first identify their own contributions to health care disparities before identifying areas of opportunity to address the issue, said Aimee Loucks, PharmD, manager, specialty clinical pharmacy programs and formulary, Kaiser Permanente.