Drug accessibility and pricing symposium

This symposium offered a forum for leaders across the pharmaceuticals field.

This forum gathered diverse experts representing scholars in economics, ethics, public health, and healthcare; policymakers and regulators at the federal and state level; private industry such as manufacturers, care providers, and prescription benefits managers; and consumer advocates. The symposium was structured around core themes and allowed for the dissemination of the latest research.

The conference was structured to allow a genuine exchange of ideas between leaders in academia, policy, and the marketplace.

Organized by:

Stacey B. Lee, JD
Associate Professor
Johns Hopkins Carey Business School
Core Faculty
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
For questions concerning the conference, please email
carey_drug_symposium@jhu.edu.

Speakers

G. Caleb Alexander, MD, MS
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Caleb Alexander is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he serves as founding co-director of the Center for Drug Safety and Effectiveness and Principal Investigator of the Johns Hopkins-FDA Center of Excellence in Regulatory Science and Innovation. He is a practicing general internist and pharmacoepidemiologist, and he is internationally recognized for his research examining prescription drug utilization, safety and effectiveness. The author of over 200 scientific articles and book chapters, he has published regularly in leading scientific journals, serves on several editorial and advisory boards, and is a frequent speaker on pharmaceutical utilization and policy.

Gerard F. Anderson, PhD
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Gerard Anderson is a professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School Public Health and at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Hospital Finance and Management. He has directed reviews of health systems for the World Bank and USAID in multiple countries. He has authored two books, published over 250 articles, testified in Congress over 40 times as an individual witness, and serves on multiple editorial committees. Prior to his arrival at Johns Hopkins, Anderson held various positions in the Office of the Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services, where he helped to develop Medicare prospective payment legislation.

Ge Bai, PhD
Johns Hopkins Carey Business School

Ge Bai is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. Bai is an expert on health care provider billing and cost management and has extensive experience in analyzing large administrative and claims data. She has published in leading academic journals such as JAMA, Health Affairs, Medicare Care Research & Review, Decision Sciences, Journal of Management Accounting Research, Accounting Horizons, Journal of Business Ethics, and American Journal of Medical Quality. Her work has been widely featured in CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC, New York Times, NPR, Washington Post, and other media and used as testimony before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Alison Bateman-House, PhD, MPH, MA
New York University Langone Medical Center

Alison Bateman-House is an assistant professor at New York University Langone Medical Center. She has advanced training in bioethics, public health, and history, and she specializes in the ethics and history of human subjects research and public health. She also co-chairs the NYU School of Medicine Working Group on Compassionate Use and Pre-Approval Access. Bateman-House serves as the nonvoting, nonpaid deputy chairperson of the Compassionate Use Advisory Committee, an external, expert panel of internationally recognized medical experts, bioethicists, and patient representatives formed by NYU School of Medicine, which advises the Janssen division of Johnson and Johnson about requests for compassionate use of some of its investigational medicines.

Jay Bhattacharya, MD, PhD
Stanford University
Jay Bhattacharya is a Professor of Medicine at Stanford University. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economics Research, a senior fellow at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, and at the Stanford Freeman Spogli Institute. He directs the Stanford Center on the Demography of Health and Aging. Previously, he worked as an economist at the RAND Corporation. Bhattacharya’s research focuses on the economics of health care around the world with an emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations. Bhattacharya’s research has been published in economics, statistics, legal, medical, public health, and health policy journals.

Rujul Desai, JD
Avalere Health
Rujul Desai is a vice president at Avalere Health, where he advises clients on market access, reimbursement, strategic contracting, and regulatory solutions. He has experience in specialty pharmacy, biopharma, PBM, legal, and regulatory services. Prior to joining Avalere, he held a number of leadership roles, including at CVS Caremark, UCB, and Theracom. He was also the founder of a specialty hub services company, supporting biopharma products. He has significant health law experience, including practicing at the law firm of K&L Gates.

Sharon Glave Frazee, PhD, MPH
Pharmacy Benefit Management Institute
Sharon Glave Frazee is vice president of research and education at Pharmacy Benefits Management Institute and an assistant adjunct professor at Washington University in St. Louis. Prior to joining PBMI, Sharon was a vice president at Express Scripts, one of the largest PBM’s in the nation. She has held leadership roles in health and economic outcomes research, survey design, pilot and program design and evaluation, analytics and research consulting, advanced analytics, and the development of predictive models at Walgreens, LabCorp, and Landacorp. She provided evaluation research for various state and local government agencies before joining the private sector. She has authored or coauthored over 50 publications as well as book chapters and white papers.

Jeremy A. Greene, MD, PhD
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine
Jeremy Greene is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. He serves as the Elizabeth Treide and A. McGehee Harvey Chair in the History of Medicine. His research interests include the history of therapeutics, especially pharmaceuticals. He also practices internal medicine at the East Baltimore Medical Center with admitting privileges to the Johns Hopkins University Hospital. He serves on the Johns Hopkins University Press Faculty Editorial Board. His book “Prescribing by Numbers” was recognized with a Rachel Carson Prize in 2009. His most recent book is “Generic: The Unbranding of Modern Medicine.”

Sarah Karlin-Smith
Politico
Sarah Karlin-Smith is a health care reporter specializing in covering the policy and politics that affect the drug industry. Her journalistic focus is on the broad impacts of events on the worldwide pharmaceutical and national regulatory communities. She has interviewed FDA officials, legislators, pharmaceutical executives, medical researchers, financial analysts, lawyers and lobbyists. Before joining Politico she developed expertise in health care reporting at FDAnews and the Pink Sheet where she covered all angles of pharmaceutical policy from clinical trials to patent law and pharma social media regulations on the Hill and at FDA. In 2014, she was selected as an Association of Health Care Journalists-National Library of Medicine fellow.

Stacey B. Lee, JD
Johns Hopkins Carey Business School
Stacey Lee is an associate professor at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and core faculty at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She is an attorney and health care negotiation consultant admitted before the bar in the State of Maryland and the Fourth Circuit of the U.S. Court of Appeals. She previously worked as a trial lawyer and corporate in-house counsel. Her legal research explores how pharmaceutical manufacturers’ business practices affect the public’s access to medicine both nationally and internationally. In 2017, she was selected for the Fulbright Specialist Program, an initiative of the Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and World Learning.

Dan Liljenquist, JD
Intermountain Healthcare
Daniel R. Liljenquist is vice president of enterprise and initiative at Intermountain Healthcare, where he is launching the company’s new nonprofit generic drug company. The Utah-based healthcare organization leads the project, joined by Ascension, SSM Health, and Trinity Health, in consultation with the Department of Veterans Affairs. The new company intends to be an FDA approved drug manufacturer. He was a Utah state senator from 2009-2011. His career as a consultant began with Bain, and in 2012 he launched his own firm guiding social sector solutions in pension reform and health care. He received his law degree from the University of Chicago.

Jennifer E. Miller, PhD
NYU School of Medicine
Jennifer Miller is an assistant professor at New York University School of Medicine. Previous academic appointments include Harvard University’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics, Duke University’s Kenan Institute for Ethics and Fuqua School of Business, Fordham University's Graduate School of Business, and Columbia University's Bioethics and Cross Cultural Education Program. She is the founding President of the nonprofit Bioethics International and creator of the Good Pharma Scorecard. She has served on task forces the CDC, the American Medical Association, the United Nations, and the National Institutes of Health. Her work explores the ethics, transparency and governance of how medicines and vaccines are researched, developed, marketed, and made accessible to patients globally.

William V. Padula, PhD
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
William Padula is an assistant professor at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. In 2017, he and colleagues collaborated with the Maryland Attorney General to pass bipartisan state legislation to restrict price hikes on generic pharmaceuticals – the first of its kind in the U.S. He is jointly appointed in the School of Nursing and the Armstrong Institute for Patient Safety and Quality at Johns Hopkins Medicine. Previously, he was a health economics fellow in the Department of Medicine at the University of Chicago. In addition to over 50 publications and numerous awards, he serves on the board of directors for the National Pressure Ulcer Advisory Panel and as a Commissioner for the American Nurses Credentialing Center.

Benjamin Rubenstein, MFA
Writer and Speaker
Benjamin Rubenstein has published books, blogs, and personal essays, and he speaks frequently on the topics of health and cancer. He survived Ewing’s sarcoma after one year of treatment at the NIH when he was 16. Two years later, he survived myelodysplastic syndrome. His writing is regularly featured in the Huffington Post and has been reviewed by the New York Times and Newsweek. As a speaker, he shares his story of surviving cancer at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the Livestrong Foundation, Children's National Medical Center, and on the podcast Story Collider, among many other forums. He received his BA in economics from the University of Virginia and recently competed his MFA in creative writing from the University of Southern Maine’s top-ranked Stonecoast program.

Christopher Robertson, JD, PhD, MA
University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law
Christopher Robertson is associate dean for Research and Innovation and professor of law at the University of Arizona. He is an expert in health law at the intersection of law and science. He has co-edited two books, published more than 50 articles. In 2018 Harvard University Press will publish his book, “Paying for Ourselves: The Ethics, Economics, and Law of Cost-Sharing in Health Insurance.” He has served as a Visiting Professor at Harvard Law School and New York University School of Law, and he is currently affiliated faculty with the Petrie Flom Center for Health Care Policy, Bioethics and Biotechnology at Harvard. His legal practice has focused on complex litigation involving medical and scientific disputes.

Joanna M. Shepherd, JD, PhD
Emory University School of Law
Joanna Shepherd is a professor at Emory University School of Law and adjunct professor in the Emory Department of Economics. Previously, she was an assistant professor at Clemson University and worked at the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. Her research focuses on legal and economic issues in health policy. In addition to publishing dozens of academic articles, she is the author of two textbooks. Her expert work has examined issues relating to market power and competition, economic impact analyses of proposed regulations, enforcement actions by federal agencies, and damage computations. She has testified before the House of Representatives Judiciary Committee, the Committee on Law and Justice of the National Academy of Sciences, and several state legislative committees.

Bryon Wornson
Pfizer
Bryon Wornson is global health and value lead for oncology at Pfizer, where he is responsible for evidence generation and pricing strategies. After joining Pfizer in 2005, he was the vice president of corporate affairs global innovative pharma business. In that role, he served as the single point of accountability for public affairs and communication strategies and initiatives to shape the operating environment for $14 billion business unit with global commercial objectives. Previous to his work at Pfizer, he worked for the governor and speaker in Wisconsin state government and earlier in his career provided public affairs support at Eli Lilly. He received his undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. In 2017, he was a featured speaker at the famous SXSW conference in a program titled, Cancer Data: Driving Medication Purchase Decisions.

David Yakimischak, MBA
ConnectiveRx
David Yakimischak is chief technology officer at ConnectiveRx. He joined Surescripts in 2006 and has served as its chief technology officer, chief quality officer, and general manager. Previously, he held leadership roles at Medscape, Medicalogic, JSTOR, Dow Jones, and Merrill Lynch. His expertise was cited in the 2012 Institute of Medicine publication Health IT and Patient Safety. In 2011, he was a member of the HHS ONC Steering Committee on Electronic Prescribing of Discharge Medications. He was the inventor of two U.S. patent applications on the topic of quality control of electronic prescriptions. He served on the editorial advisory board of InfoWorld magazine, is a founding member of the CTO Club in New York City, and mentors at the Columbia University Center for Technology Management.