Interviews

Leaders from Banner|Aetna discuss the joint venture that has grown to 375,000 members since it launched in 2017 to offer health plans to employers in Arizona.

Leaders from Banner|Aetna discuss the joint venture that has grown to 375,000 members since it launched in 2017 to offer health plans to employers in Arizona.

Leaders from Banner|Aetna discuss the joint venture that has grown to 375,000 members since it launched in 2017 to offer health plans to employers in Arizona.

The organizations that can take on 2-sided risk are usually bigger and that’s not always better for health care, said Jayson Slotnik, partner, Health Policy Strategies, Inc.

Alignment of incentives in the United States do not always support the use of biosimilars or other lower-cost alternatives, said Sonia T. Oskouei, PharmD, BCMAS, DPLA, vice president of biosimilars at Cardinal Health.

Jessica Brooks, MPM, president and chief executive officer, Pittsburgh Business Group on Health, spoke on the core themes of her keynote address related to diversity, equity, and inclusion at the 2022 Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health annual conference.

Many payers are not familiar with digital therapeutics, indicating the need for better education among payers, said Jayne Hornung, chief clinical officer, pharmacy, MMIT.

Sharon Phares, PhD, MPH, chief scientific officer of the National Pharmaceutical Council, describes the lasting equity concerns regarding the use of health technology assessments (HTAs) for women.

Gary Owens, MD, president of Gary Owens Associates, describes mechanisms, trials of treatments in the works for pulmonary arterial hypertension (PAH).

Miruna Sasu, PhD, MBA, president and CEO of COTA Healthcare, discusses 3 ways in which the FDA can provide, and has provided, assistance on the capture of real-word data (RWD) in electronic medical records.

The logistics for storing chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) T-cell therapies remain a challenge, said Joel Wayment, vice president of operations for 3PL Services, Cardinal Health.

At Digestive Disease Week 2022, John M. DeWitt, MD, professor of medicine, Indiana University Health, explains his findings on the diagnosis and management of achalasia in 2022 and how the COVID-19 pandemic affected these trends.

At Digestive Disease Week 2022, Sravanthi Parasa, MD, gastroenterologist at Swedish Gastroenterology, talks about how artificial intelligence (AI) is used in gastroenterology and what challenges it may pose for clinicians.

Investigational microbiota-based live therapeutic RBX2660 was found to be safe and effective at reducing Clostridioides difficile (C difficile) recurrence, said Paul Feuerstadt, MD, assistant clinical professor at Yale University School of Medicine, gastroenterologist at PACT Gastroenterology Center, at Digestive Disease Week 2022.

Outcomes were worse for patients hospitalized once for Clostridioides difficile infection compared with alternative reasons for hospitalization, but the risk of adverse outcomes did not seem to increase with recurrent admissions for C difficile, explained Preethi Venkat, MD, second-year internal medicine resident at University of California, San Diego, at Digestive Disease Week 2022.

Roxana Siles, MD, FAAAAI, staff in the Department of Allergy and Immunology at Cleveland Clinic and codirector of the Asthma Center at Cleveland Clinic, discusses the important need for chronic cough therapies and what issues with current treatments should be addressed by next-generation medications.

Because symptoms are similar to those of gastroesophageal reflux disease, achalasia is often misdiagnosed, explained Eric Low, MD, MPH, gastroenterology fellow at University of California, San Diego at Digestive Disease Week 2022.

The accumulation of screening and treatment disparities are contributing to colorectal cancer incidence and mortality disparities, said Folasade (Fola) May, MD, PhD, gastroenterologist, health services researcher at University of California, Los Angeles, at Digestive Disease Week 2022.

The value of multicancer early detection tests is based not only on cost, but cost in relation to the outcomes, said Patricia Deverka, MD, MS, senior researcher, deputy director at the Center for Translational and Policy Research and Precision Medicine, University of California San Francisco.

On this episode of Managed Care Cast, Tham Thi Le, PhD, MPH, lead author—then at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, now at AstraZeneca—and Linda Wastila, PhD, MSPH, senior author and the Parke-Davis Chair in Geriatric Pharmacotherapy, Pharmaceutical Health Services Research, at the University of Maryland at Baltimore, discuss the findings of their investigation into opioid use by patients with a new cancer diagnosis and the opioid prescribing practices of their health care providers from 2007 to 2013.

Elaine Siegfried, MD, professor of pediatrics and dermatology, Saint Louis University Health Sciences Center, explains the impact of socioeconomic status on the management of atopic dermatitis in the clinical setting.

Marc-Andre Cornier, MD, professor and director of the Division of Endocrinology, Diabetes and Metabolic Diseases at the Medical University of South Carolina, explains trends he expects to see in upcoming diabetes and weight loss studies.

Latha Alaparthi, MD, gastroenterologist at Gastroenterology Center of Connecticut, talks about lessons she has learned from being a woman in a medical leadership position and what she hopes to teach others at the Women in GI Luncheon at Digestive Disease Week (DDW) 2022.

Soumya Vishwanath, PharmD, senior manager of formulary management at Magellan Rx Management, explained what she wishes more people understood about digital therapeutics for behavioral health disorders.

Sharon Phares, PhD, MPH, chief scientific officer of the National Pharmaceutical Council, explained the importance of taking multiple factors into consideration when making health care decisions.

Miruna Sasu, PhD, MBA, president and CEO of COTA Healthcare, discusses the medicines discovery process and how real-world data can be used to evaluate patient and tumor response to treatment regimens.

Anna Brewster, services and volunteer manager at The Food Chain, a London-based charity that provides short-term assistance to persons living with HIV (PLWH), discusses how education provided through the Eating Positively program connects the importance of food and proper nutrition to health outcomes.

While 2023 is a big year with at least 7 adalimumab biosimilars expected to come to market, 2024 will be even more important because all the products will be on the market and formulary decisions can be made, said Sonia T. Oskouei, PharmD, BCMAS, DPLA, vice president of biosimilars at Cardinal Health.