Latest / Making Medicine / Making Patients the Center of U.S. Healthcare Reform
Transcript
- 0:01You're listening to Making Medicine Stories from the Early Stage Life Sciences Ecosystem, a
- 0:07podcast that explores the people and deals that have led to the medicines, devices,
- 0:11and technologies that keep us healthy. Let's get into the show. Hello,
- 0:16this is John Stanford, the host of the Making Medicine podcast. We're
- 0:20thrilled to have McKay Jimison, executive director of the Patient Access and Affordability Project
- 0:25at Patients Rising, with us today to talk about all things patients, all
- 0:30things drug development, and of course all things policy. McKay, so glad
- 0:35you could be here today to start off. You know, one of the
- 0:39things we hear most from listeners is they're so keen to hear where people came
- 0:45from and all the twisted and tortuous paths that led to a career in pharmaceutical
- 0:51or life science. And you've had a little bit of both. Can you
- 0:55talk a little bit about who you are and your history and how you ended
- 1:00up running the Patient Access and Affordability Project. Yeah, thanks, John,
- 1:03I appreciate you having me on. You know, I'm happy to talk a
- 1:07little bit about my background. I view it as chapters, but at first
- 1:11I just wanted thank you for having me on. I find America's really at
- 1:15a crossroads when it comes to healthcare, and we need to have as may
- 1:18people as possible talking about this conversation. And I just say that because I
- 1:23didn't really start my career out in healthcare. I started out in politics,
- 1:26like like many others. My first chapter was working for the Governor of Florida,
- 1:33Jeff Bush, initially as a spokesperson as a speechwriter, and then later
- 1:40on I wanted to have some business experience. I worked for some small companies
- 1:46and then got back into into politics for a little bit. In the two
- 1:49thousand and eight campaign, my candidate and win I needed a job and I
- 1:55happened to find one at Visor, and I was just really fortunate. Visor
- 2:00was looking for someone with a different experience than the kind of traditional healthcare pr
- 2:07route. This was at the beginning of the Obamacare negotiations, and you know,
- 2:14obviously the pharmaceutical industry has been under a pretty heavy political attack for for
- 2:19years, and so it was a kind of a right fit, right time.
- 2:23It really had a great run at Visor. That was the second chapter
- 2:27of my career. I initially with a spokesperson for the company and then later
- 2:31became the corporate affairs lead for one of Visor's businesses, their internal medicine business,
- 2:38and it really gave me an incredible vantage point into all aspects of the
- 2:42organization. When I initially got into Visor, I focused a lot on sort
- 2:47of our late stage pipeline, and then as I progressed, had more experience
- 2:53with some of the inline products. So I've covered everything from the earlier stage
- 2:59science into the regular the tory issues, as well as once you get a
- 3:02medicine on market, you know what are sort of the implications with access,
- 3:08what are the implications with litigation in some cases, as well as what happens
- 3:15when drug loses exclusivity. I've also had the opportunity to see manufacturing plants,
- 3:21I've been in the labs where scientists work and discover drugs. I've also,
- 3:25as part of my job, traveled all over the world talking with health ministers
- 3:30or other officials and have had you know, really diverse experience learning how other
- 3:36countries are really trying to solve their own healthcare crises. And so that kind
- 3:43of inspired the third leg of my career, which is signed in now,
- 3:46is really understanding how important it is that we redesign our system to center around
- 3:55the patient first and foremost. I'm working now with an organization called Patients Rising.
- 4:01At the core of Patients Rising, it's really always been about helping people
- 4:05be their own best advocate in the healthcare system. We do a lot of
- 4:10work with a university style program to help them become advocates as well as we
- 4:15have a healthline that patients can call about really any need that they have and
- 4:20we will help them get the resources or put them in touch with a network
- 4:26of other organizations that can provide them the services that they need. So that's
- 4:30the core of Patients Rising. And then kind of the book ends of that
- 4:34is we have an advocacy organization or five one four called Patients Rising now.
- 4:40And then what I lead is a little bit more of the policy arm we'd
- 4:43like to We like to call it our think tank arm, though that might
- 4:46be a bit grandiose, but it's the patient Access an Affordability project, and
- 4:50it really is what it says. It's it's about access, affordability, transparency,
- 4:56and equity. I always say our aim is to be the leading source
- 5:00of patient inspired health policy. It's it's a job that I really have a
- 5:04personal passion towards and have really enjoyed. We just brought together an advisory board
- 5:12to help guide us in terms of looking ahead on our kind of strategic plan
- 5:17for the future, both playing out a vision for what we want the patient
- 5:20access an affordability project to become, but also what's our vision for healthcare,
- 5:25what does America need as relates to maintaining leadership in science and innovation, but
- 5:30also how do we think about financing healthcare to keep up with the pace of
- 5:34science and medical innovation that we see well, And I think that's what we're
- 5:39going to spend so much of today's episode unpacking, because, as we're going
- 5:43to talk about in a second, you made some very good and public points
- 5:47about you can't have it all to some extent, and so you know,
- 5:54I think that's a fascinating sort of background you had from politics into healthcare.
- 6:00Then just as deep expertise that develops because you know, Fizer, if you
- 6:03talk about sort of someone with a big enough footprint that you would be seeing
- 6:09health ministers, but also seeing labs, but also seeing manufacturing, you know
- 6:14a little bit of exposure to everything, and I think that that gives you
- 6:17a really good lens for what you're trying to do now. And I think
- 6:20where incubating patients rising definitely overlap is this idea of patient centricity. And I
- 6:29think, in a nutshell from incubates perspective, patient centricity is going to require
- 6:36choice and if we if we make some decisions, if we go down some
- 6:45paths that are being discussed, that limit innovation. The other way I think
- 6:49about it is Okay, you're giving patients fewer choices. So one of ourbc's
- 6:55always puts it to me, well, you know, hip replacement is a
- 7:00terribly painful surgery and enormously expensive, but if you need it, you go
- 7:05get it. In ten years from now, we should be taking some sort
- 7:12of pill that alleviates that. And maybe we have no hip replacements because medicine
- 7:16is doing the job that the surgery has been doing. And when I think
- 7:20about patient centricity, you can't have the patient at the center if there are
- 7:25no choices. So I don't care how cheap we make hip replacements, or
- 7:30you're still going to have to go to the hospital. You're still gonna have
- 7:31to have your hip replaced. And I think sometimes people don't think about innovation
- 7:36as a patient choice aspect. They think about it from the science perspective or
- 7:42the cost perspective. But you know, I wonder if you have any reaction
- 7:46to that is, to some extent, empowering the patient gonna require more choices
- 7:53for the patient about how they want to address their particular therapeutic need. Choices,
- 7:59transparent see access to information. I think are all going to be critical
- 8:03elements. You know. One of the things that really frustrates me. I
- 8:07hear all the time that patients things are too sophisticate for patients, or patients
- 8:13don't have an interest in X, Y and z. My experience is the
- 8:18complete opposite. Now, you may have varying degrees of sophistication based off of,
- 8:24you know, a patient maybe just being diagnosed versus you know, a
- 8:28patient who's been dealing with a disease for a very long time. But my
- 8:33experience is there's a hunger for patients to understand what's going on in the healthcare
- 8:37system. They want to be actively engaged. They know they have to be
- 8:41their self advocate, especially now we're seeing the erosion of the patient doctor relationship
- 8:48and the power being now put in the hands of really large companies or the
- 8:52government to decide what's best for them. The interesting thing on the hip replacement
- 8:58thing is when it comes to comes to cost, a lot of times you're
- 9:01not even seeing real competition as it relates to uh, those procedures. And
- 9:07UM, I'm aware of of of a startup that's doing some really great work
- 9:11in almost doing an Expedia style or an Airbnb style model where you can do
- 9:18procedures. Um, you can you can ask the hospital systems to compete for
- 9:24procedures. Uh. This business is getting procedures done at a lower cost than
- 9:31the rebated rates that the insurers are getting. Uh. That's an example of
- 9:35where I think you have entrepreneurs uh, you know, where you have investors
- 9:39behind really innovative solutions. But the reason nobody's heard of this company is because
- 9:46it's a threat to the health systems. It's a threat to the consolidated powers
- 9:48that kind of exist. And so that's one of the biggest things that I
- 9:52think we really have to tackle is to make meaningful change in the healthcare system
- 9:56to provide the type of choice to center things around patients is going to take
- 10:01I think a unwinding of a very entangled system of self interests. Of some
- 10:07very large, um large large organizations. Yeah, I think you're I feel
- 10:16like the discussion of that unwinding is is fodder for dozens more episodes because I
- 10:22think you're exact. I think it bears saying that our system right now is
- 10:26not patient centered um our pay. I would I would even say it was
- 10:33never it was never designed to be patient centric. And I think this is
- 10:35this is one of the biggest challenges that we really have, is we can't
- 10:39go back in time. We can only go forward. But to go forward,
- 10:45it's can probably require some difficult choices that counter you know, some longstanding
- 10:52business interests. And you know, when when you think about really our our
- 10:56modern healthcare or modern health insurance system, it was really built around uh the
- 11:01nineteen forties, you know, response to inflation at that point in time in
- 11:05wage controls, and uh, you know what what had what happened was rather
- 11:11than offering increased wages, employers started to offer health insurance as a way to
- 11:18make to compete for employees, which then set off Blue Cross and Blue Shield
- 11:24to design products cater to employers and later the government. And really, when
- 11:31you think about it, the product has always been the payer it's always been
- 11:35the employer or the government. The product has never been centered towards the actual
- 11:41patient itself, And so we have to unravel almost one hundred years of a
- 11:45system that's been built up, but it was never centered around the patient.
- 11:48You know, I think that's something we all should dwell on for a second,
- 11:52that the patient has never been at the center of our healthcare system.
- 11:58And so I think that's why a lot of the work that you do is
- 12:01so important. And I also completely agree about this the way we talk about
- 12:07patients and we talk about their literacy rates as it relates to a therapeutic area.
- 12:16I don't think you can see a better informed group than a set of
- 12:20patients or parents of patients pouring over NIH studies and anxiously awaiting Phase two and
- 12:28Phase three A and B results. So I think this idea that patients can't
- 12:31follow what's going on in healthcare is completely contradictory, because it's in your self
- 12:39interest to understand your disease and the options that are out there. But it
- 12:41is so hard. And Hearson access in and I know, you know,
- 12:46has been on talking about clinical trial access and making that more available, and
- 12:52I think that's another component to allow people to know if clinical trials can have
- 12:58a place their particular therapy. No, I was gonna say, actually,
- 13:01I do think clinical trials that that's another area where I'm seeing a lot of
- 13:07investment as well as a lot of entrepreneurial thinking. Um, I'm you know,
- 13:13a company that I'm familiar with as well has really rethought even how you
- 13:20do patient recruitment. Rather than you know, everything's always been these big advertising
- 13:24campaigns, you know, bus ads and you know whatever else, and it's
- 13:28never really been particularly effective. This particular company's changed it where they're integrated into
- 13:35health systems EMRs and they're able to identify, qualify patients and use their their
- 13:43actual treating physician as as someone who can offer them a clinical trial as a
- 13:50treatment option, which makes a ton of sense. And so rather than having
- 13:54to revolve around academic medical centers, we're actually touching patients at the actual point
- 13:58of and their their success rate in terms of recruiting patients that are actually qualified
- 14:05meeting they meet the criteria set forth in the clinical trials is astronomical. It's
- 14:11a game change. Yeah, I think the democratization of clinical trials is it's
- 14:16kind of have you have two sides who need to find each other, and
- 14:22we had just designed a system that didn't let them find each other. But
- 14:24of course the simplest thing to do is go get that trusted guidance from the
- 14:30doctor. So I'm sure the startups in these spaces are going to see some
- 14:33breakthroughs. I want to pivot to the original reason for having you on,
- 14:39because you know, for many of our our listeners, we've got a lot
- 14:43of policymakers and their and their staffs who listen. You wrote a pretty compelling
- 14:50piece in my view in stat following the State of the Union, and it
- 14:54put voice to something that that was really on my mind that night as well.
- 15:01And for those of you who haven't seen it, will make sure we
- 15:03attach it in in the podcast notes. But it's a great article and it
- 15:09looks at two sentences in the State of the Union, the first one being
- 15:18President Biden's announcement that at long last, he and Democrats in Congress have reined
- 15:24in drug prices through the Inflation Reduction Act. And we've talked a lot about
- 15:30on this show about the impact of price controls on investment. But then forty
- 15:33minutes later in the speech. He talks about that under the Biden administration,
- 15:39they're launching a moonshot that's going to tackle cancer. And you wrote a piece
- 15:43saying these two sentences are fundamentally at odds and that they were spaced out in
- 15:50the speech so that you forgot that one was said related to the other.
- 15:54Can you just talk a little bit more about your thinking that you you opined
- 15:58and in that OpenD that I just thought was great. Yeah, thank you
- 16:02for that. So this is something that's really been of a concern to me
- 16:06ever since, you know, President Biden was was elected, because he's he's
- 16:08talked quite a bit even during the campaign about looking to more of a European
- 16:15style system for managing you know, healthcare expenses, and you know, the
- 16:22Inflation Reduction Act has really been a significant step in that direction. And I
- 16:30should just say just my background, Um, I lived in Europe as well
- 16:36as Canada in my childhood. My mom, when I was in college at
- 16:41this point, had a disease. Uh, she's okay now, but while
- 16:45they were living in Europe and had to move back to the States. I
- 16:48know a lot of people love how Europe operates healthcare. I've had my experiences
- 16:55with it. My family's had were experiences. We've moved back to the States
- 16:57and lived here for a reason. But all that said, we're in a
- 17:02place where we have, I think, very contradictory notions about the state of
- 17:06healthcare. In one, there's a desire to reign in cost, and I
- 17:10think that, you know what, I think that's not a wrong desire,
- 17:12right, we shouldn't have wasteful spending. But but there's definitely this politicization of
- 17:21healthcare and particularly the pharmaceutical industry. When you look at it, you know,
- 17:26and it's a declining spend year over year. Now it is a significant
- 17:29spend, but we're we're ignoring roughly ninety two percent of the overall costs in
- 17:33the healthcare system. But this idea that on one end we can have a
- 17:41moonshot to address cancer and then on the other end be saying that if you
- 17:47are successful at developing new treatments, we're not, We're going to take away
- 17:52the original incentive that existed. Those two policies are incompatible, right, and
- 18:00so it's a concern that I think, listen, State of the Union's you
- 18:07know, there's some poll tested rhetoric without a doubt. But if you're a
- 18:11speech writer, you know how this goes. But but we're but we're going
- 18:14a little bit big beyond the rhetoric, I think with the policy that we're
- 18:17seeing and now that now that we see what CMS is doing as it relates
- 18:19to both the Inflation Reduction Act, but also as it relates to how they're
- 18:25starting to look at accelerated approval drugs, not just in Alzheimer's, by the
- 18:30way, expanding beyond to look at selling gene therapy, immunology, other areas
- 18:36where there's tremendous promise and science. We're moving to an area where we have
- 18:41an incredibly contradictory approach with even within our own government. You know, I
- 18:48actually wrote a piece recently called that we have a cold war within HHS where
- 18:52you have the FDA. And I've been very critical of the FDA historically,
- 18:56but I will say I think they're moving in the right direction in any ways
- 19:00and trying to accelerate new medicines to patients where there's just a substantial need.
- 19:08And listen, there may be some controversial decisions that are made along the way,
- 19:15but I think as long as we're being evidence based, we're developing evidence
- 19:18over time, the right answer will come forward and we'll understand that. And
- 19:22trust me, these patients are desperate for medicines. We shouldn't hold them back
- 19:25from them. But then on the other end, you have the payer side
- 19:29of the system that says, we're distrusting of that FDA's approval. We're just
- 19:33we don't know how to deal with this what they deem a low level of
- 19:37evidence, and so they're moving towards this path of choosing not to cover these
- 19:41medicines for these patients. This is, you know, particularly when you look
- 19:45at a disease area like Alzheimer's, which disproportionately touch as seniors. This is
- 19:51medicare saying to the population that they serve, we're not looking out for your
- 19:56interests. To me, that is frightening. That is frightening. Yeah,
- 20:00I think, And you know, if you put our put incubates hat on
- 20:04of being the investor, it's frightening too, because our investments are ten years
- 20:12out, fifteen years out. The dollars we invest today hopefully bring forward a
- 20:18medicine in ten years. So if we show that only works, if we
- 20:22know that in twenty thirty three, the reimbursement system in the United States.
- 20:27It looks something like it looked like in twenty twenty three, and we're starting
- 20:32to see more coverage and more discussion. But I'm with you. We've got
- 20:36the bucket of problems that the Inflation Reduction Act caused. We've got the small
- 20:40molecule penalty. We haven't really solved and I want to come back to this.
- 20:45We haven't really solved access and affordability issues. We just made ourselves feel
- 20:51better for a second. There are some good pro patient reforms. We like
- 20:55patients moving, we like capping out of pocket costs. These are things Incubate
- 20:59fights for. But we've also got over here, which you've just touched on,
- 21:03and this idea that FDA approval is no longer the stamp that it used
- 21:10to be on a product, and payers are second guessing in this case CMS.
- 21:15That's a dangerous, dangerous place to be. And at first it was,
- 21:18well, it's just Alzheimer's. Because of the data and because it's going
- 21:22to be so expensive. These tools and you know this as a product of
- 21:29not just policy but politics. Once you create a tool in the toolkit,
- 21:33you don't put it away. You keep finding other reasons to use that tool,
- 21:38and these non coverage decisions seem to now be cms's tool to say,
- 21:45well, you convince the FDA, but we're not convinced. And that's a
- 21:49bifurcated system that patients can afford. And it's not scientific, it's ideological.
- 21:56There's this piece that was actually published in one of the medical journals yesterday from
- 22:03some of the folks at Harvard, and they cherry picked three countries. They
- 22:07looked at France, Germany, and Canada, and they decided that basically nearly
- 22:12all of the medicines that the top medicines in medicare basically should not be prescribed
- 22:19to patients because they don't they they're not significant enough in their in their value.
- 22:26Now, none of those countries ask the patient how valuable those medicines are
- 22:29to them. But that's the system that people are envisioning. They want to
- 22:33put the power in the hands of health economists to determine whether or not something
- 22:37is of value to the system. And they're looking at it again from the
- 22:42payer perspective, from the health system's perspective, which means that they're not if
- 22:48you have, if you have a medicine that helps you go back to work,
- 22:52increases your productivity. And this is where it really gets crazy. That's
- 22:56actually in the employer's interests, right, But the health and the way that
- 23:00they're designing their benefits programs, um, they're not. They're not capturing productivity
- 23:06as a benefit to them. And so even though it's even in the employer's
- 23:10interest, it's not going to necessarily be reflected in how the insurance design covers
- 23:15it because fundamentally they're focused on costing the existing system that they're captured, not
- 23:18indirect medical costs, not things related to economic benefit. Being able to continue
- 23:26in education, you know, be able to take care of your children,
- 23:30for example, all sorts of societal benefits that are of extreme value. It
- 23:34could be, and it could be as simple as not even going back to
- 23:37work. But um, you know, I heard a story of a medicine
- 23:41in a rare disease space where one of them things that was learned through the
- 23:48clinical trial process was just for that medicine to give a patient the ability to
- 23:52move their finger so that they could operate a wheelchair was a game changer for
- 23:57them. Now, from health to this perspective, that may not be substantial
- 24:02value, but to that patient. It's a game changer. It's a game
- 24:04changer. And so the biggest concern to me is when all these CMS policies
- 24:10are made, who's asking the patient what they think? Right? Instead,
- 24:15it's just using some algorithms to model out some kind of cost benefit analysis rather
- 24:18than understanding the true human impact associated with particular medicine. Well, and I
- 24:25think even some supporters of the Inflation Reduction Act as the you know, we
- 24:30said, look, the devil's going to be in the details here. It's
- 24:33one thing to say, okay, we're ushering in an air of price controls.
- 24:37Okay, how are you going to set the price? In this initial
- 24:41CMS guidance Incubate filed some comments on but a lot of the patient community and
- 24:47Congress by some extent have now started talking about qualities these adjusted life years,
- 24:52and even some of the most ardent supporters of the Inflation Reduction Act are saying,
- 24:57no, no, we're not for Quale's but okay, you're it gets
- 25:03to your words sort of incompatible policies. Okay, Well, at some point
- 25:10you're letting a health economist or someone at CMS begin to be determining value without
- 25:17the patient voice and I know the patient community has been very concerned about not
- 25:19having a seat at the table as these price controls are developed, because that's
- 25:25something Patient Rising or your project at Access and Affordability Project have been looking at.
- 25:30Yeah, in fact, we've been tip of the spears. It relates
- 25:33to really calling a question of the use of the quality, really questioning iser's
- 25:41of methodology. We do believe it's inherently discriminatory. It isn't. It is
- 25:48an outdated method. It was designed before I was born. Um, you
- 25:53know, I try to assume best intent and I'm assuming that it was probably
- 25:59fit for purpose in the nineteen sixties and seventies, but in the twenty first
- 26:04centuries completely outdated. But there's this is part of sort of this ideological,
- 26:11you know system that there are people believe that this is the standard that we
- 26:15have, this is good enough. And the funny thing is it's the same
- 26:18people are saying that the medicines that are being approofed today are not innovative enough,
- 26:22that are unwilling to say that how they're measuring value needs to be adjusted
- 26:29because times are changed, right, I'm like it's a bit of a double
- 26:30standard. Folks, Like, like the reality is we should expect medicines to
- 26:38improve and increase value to patients over time. That's a legitimate expectation, and
- 26:42manufacturers should be expected to demonstrate that evidence as well. And every manufacturer I
- 26:48speak to say, we're happy to try to show the evidence. But then
- 26:51you have these health economists that are like, well, we've been using the
- 26:53quality for forty years. It's the gold standards. We don't need to change
- 26:57it. It's the gold standard. No. Medicine has evolved, science has
- 27:00evolved. We're now in the state where we can capture things in an incredibly
- 27:06more granular way using technology, and there's this complete unwillingness to move away from
- 27:14it. Fortunately, you're right. Members of Congress are also many are deeply
- 27:18concerned about the use of Quality. There's a reason why it was banned as
- 27:22it relates to making access decisions for Medicare, and it does seem like we're
- 27:27moving in the direction like it will not be used for negotiations. That said,
- 27:32there's also other measures that are not great that other European governments used that
- 27:37I do think that we should be keeping an eye on as well. It's
- 27:41hard to call out which one because we don't know what CMS is looking at
- 27:45right now. But I think the bigger point is that there needs to be
- 27:49more of an effort at encouraging academics, economists, the private sector, etc.
- 27:59To be thinking about what is the right way to be valuing new health
- 28:03technologies? What is the best process? There shouldn't be a monopoly on there's
- 28:06no ice, or should not be a monopoly on health technology assessment. The
- 28:08federal government should not be a monopoly on health technology assessment. We should encourage
- 28:14people who probably don't reside in Washington, DC to start putting forward one hundred
- 28:18different ideas because on a hundred different ideas, we build a hundred different results,
- 28:22and we will start to have a dialogue on what is the best way
- 28:25to value it. I personally I am not going to be able to do
- 28:29it. You probably can't do it, but collectively we can. At least
- 28:33we can have a competition of ideas and discussion rather than just saying you know,
- 28:37no, it's the status quo or some augmented version of that. Well,
- 28:41what I think you're spot on there, and I think everyone heard it
- 28:45here first to call an open call for HTA ideas of that actually take into
- 28:52account the modern lifestyle. You know, I remember years ago one of the
- 28:56rheumatory arthritis products was going going from an injectable to an oral, going from
- 29:03an infusion therapy to an oral pill, and a lot of people said,
- 29:07well, that's not that innovative. Well tell that to the patient. Tell
- 29:11that to the patient who's comfortable taking a pill at work but not comfortable doing
- 29:15infusion or just the ease of not going to the clinic. So I think,
- 29:21what is innovation? Leaving the patient's voice out and turning this into a
- 29:27philosophical economics argument at a college campus really leaves out all of us because we're
- 29:34all going to be patients someday. We all want to walk more, we
- 29:37want to we want to be healthier. Um, what what else I'll close
- 29:42with here? I'm so grateful for the time you spent with us today.
- 29:45Um, what can incubates listeners expect out of your project and patient rising in
- 29:52the months and years to come? Yeah? No, thanks for that.
- 29:55So for twenty twenty three, you know, we're really focused on and full
- 30:00of areas we're Actually we did some really important work last year as it relates
- 30:04to health technology assessment for rare disease therapies. We're going to build off of
- 30:10that LATH this year, and I actually think it's it's more relevant than I
- 30:14ever expected because of the issues with accelerated approval. Based off of the debate
- 30:19that we're seeing, there needs to be stronger guidance on how to collect evidence
- 30:25over time to demonstrate value. As it relates to these accelerated approval drugs.
- 30:30We can't just say you can't have them because they haven't received full approval.
- 30:33It's just fundamentally wrong and unethical. So that's a major area of focus for
- 30:38us. Another area that we're going to be focusing on as well is there's
- 30:45still a lot of issues as it relates to PBMs formularity designs, both in
- 30:51the branded space with things like copae accumulators and maximizers which are just basically just
- 30:57killing patients as relates out of pocket costs, but also it's killing our generics
- 31:03and buy a similars markets. As it relates to competition, we need effective
- 31:07and competitive by a similar markets to drive down lower costs, and people will
- 31:11be surprised that the PBMs and the GPOs are actually standing in the way of
- 31:15competition. And then another area that we're going to continue to focus on is
- 31:21I think, really I call it patient transparency, but it's really focused on
- 31:26the lack of transparency within the healthcare system that patients deserve to have a better
- 31:32right to know on We're currently working on strategic planning process as well. As
- 31:36we go forward in twenty twenty four and beyond, I think we're looking to
- 31:40be more provocative and more disruptive. The biggest question on my mind that we
- 31:45want to dig into is really the question around healthcare finance. How we did
- 31:51it in the mid twentieth century is not how we need to be doing it
- 31:53in the twenty first century, and so how do we change, How do
- 31:57we move the way that we finance healthcare in a way that reflects advances in
- 32:01science and medicine. Number one. Number two will continue to have like a
- 32:06keen eye on rare disease, particularly ultrarare disease, but also the reality is
- 32:13NERD degenerate diseases and OBAC related metabolic diseases are the epidemics of our generation.
- 32:19We need to get a handle on how we are going to address that all
- 32:22across the health system, and that's going to involve innovators and science and medicine.
- 32:27That's going to involve financing how we finance it, but that's also going
- 32:31to deal with care and thinking about that in an optimal way that enhances human
- 32:37life, but also make sure that we're not we're able to afford these things
- 32:39as well. It's incredibly expensive area. And then the third area that I'm
- 32:43really excited about is really looking at the application of digital health, looking at
- 32:46everything from patient privacy, who should own patient data? I'm actually going to
- 32:52argue it should be the patient, and we have the ability to do this
- 32:55through blockchain as opposed to third parties, as well as a you know,
- 33:01with the role of AI and decision making. You know, this is an
- 33:05area that's really of concern to me, particularly as you see this consolidation ship
- 33:07and a power among like CBS is a great example. How is the AI
- 33:14going to be used? But also the positives of digital you know, how
- 33:15can they enhance life, how can they improve drug development, how can they
- 33:19improve the way that we care for patients along the way. So those are
- 33:22three ambitious areas, but that's what we're really excited to be digging into going
- 33:28forward. That is a full agenda, But I also love where I think
- 33:30we're gonna have to have you back on because I a whole other episode of
- 33:36how will chat GPT change the patient experience? So I'm going to give you
- 33:40the homework of solving that question. But that's a that's a full agenda,
- 33:45and you can keep up with McKay's work by following the Patient Access and Affordability
- 33:52Project at Patients Rising, where he is executive director. He is McKay Jimison.
- 33:59We're so grateful that you were able to join the conversation for one of
- 34:02our more patient forward episodes, which I've really appreciated, So thank you again
- 34:07for joining. I am John Stanford. You can find this the Making Medicine
- 34:12podcast and so much more at Incubate Coalition dot org. Many thanks to Ashland
- 34:17Roberts and Grace Muster in production of today's episode, and as always, keep
- 34:23innovating. You've been listening to Making Medicine. To ensure that you never miss
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