US Pharma and Biotech Summit 2024: Improving Health Policy After the 2024 Election

PE: Regardless of who wins, are there any particular actions either candidate could take that would represent a best-case scenario for health policy moving forward?

Zirkelbach: One of the most important things we need to do is address how much money goes into different middlemen in the system. The fact is today, over 50% of every dollar we spend on medicines are going to someone other than the companies that made that medicine. You can’t solve the concerns that policymakers or patients have about medicine costs if you ignore where 50% of money's going, and there’s two areas we have to address. First, we need to look at the role that pharmacy benefit managers play in the system, they take up a larger market share of the healthcare cost, and they get significant rebates and discounts off the price of medicines. Rather than give them to patients, they’re keeping it for themselves. The second thing we need to do is address the 340B program. People are starting to wake up to the fact that this is a program that needs to be significantly reformed. Many people don't realize that 340B is the second largest federal drug program. 10s of billions of dollars are going into a program that was originally designed to support the safety net hospitals and community health centers to help patients in vulnerable communities. Today, it’s a profit center for large hospital systems, for profit pharmacy chains, and PBMs. That's not the way the system was intended. We need to get more of those rebates and discounts, more than 50% of the dollar and actually get into the hands of patients so that they can have low out of pocket costs and actually be able to get the medicines that they need. That's where we think a lot of the system reforms need to be and we think policymakers should focus there. It would improve the health care system and ultimately improve the lives of patients.

PE: Are there any other takeaways from the conference that you would like to speak on?

Zirkelbach: I’ve been incredibly encouraged by what I've heard at the conference in terms of the significant innovation in and the ways that companies are using new technology, new collaboration, and finding new ways to engage patients. I think that's where the future is in terms of really making sure that our industry is leveraging the best technologies and collaborating in the most innovative ways. I think the excitement around the new possibilities on how we can better not only get medicines developed, but actually improve the patient experience. It’s encouraging, and it’s something that we should all be happy about.