Health Care Access & Coverage

A Prescription for the Future of Drug Pricing

Penn LDI Conference

9:00a.m. – 2:30p.m. ET May 5, 2023 In-Person Event

Jon M. Huntsman Hall, 8th Floor, Robertson Room, 3730 Walnut Street, Philadelphia PA

The cost of drugs is a top concern for policymakers and the public. The urgency of this issue has resulted in a rapidly changing landscape. In the past year, we’ve seen new federal legislation focused on drug pricing, payment innovations by insurers, and disruptions in the consumer market from the private sector. But what will the effects of these changes be? Join Penn LDI as we host a one-day conference to address new and pending policy changes, public and private sector innovations in this complicated market, and what the future holds for drug pricing. Follow the conversation on Twitter using #LDIDrugPricing2023.

A Prescription for the Future of Drug Pricing

Conference Agenda

9:00 a.m.

Breakfast/Registration

9:30 a.m.

Keynote Address: The Next Era of Drug Payment

Mark McClellan, MD, PhD
Robert J. Margolis Professor of Business, Medicine, and Policy, Duke University; Founding Director, Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy

10:15 a.m.

Break

10:30 a.m.

Drug Pricing and the Inflation Reduction Act

  • Troyen Brennan, MD, JD
    Adjunct Professor, Health Policy and Management, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
  • Stacie Dusetzina, PhD
    Professor, Health Policy, and Ingram Professor, Cancer Research, Vanderbilt University Medical Center
  • James McSpadden, MDiv, MA
    Senior Policy Advisor, AARP Public Policy Institute
  • Meena Seshamani, MD, PhD
    Deputy Administrator and Director, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
  • Moderator: Holly Fernandez Lynch, JD, MBe
    Assistant Professor, Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania; Assistant Professor, Carey Law School, University of Pennsylvania

11:30 a.m.

New Ways to Pay for High-Cost Drugs

  • Rena Conti, PhD
    Dean’s Research Scholar and Associate Professor, Markets, Public Policy and Law, Questrom School of Business, Boston University
  • Nancy Keating, MD, MPH
    Professor, Health Care Policy, Harvard Medical School; Professor, Medicine and Practicing General Internist, Brigham and Women’s Hospital
  • Jeff Marrazzo, MBA, MPA
    Co-Founder and Former CEO, Spark Therapeutics, Inc.
  • Moderator: Anand Shah, MD, MPH
    Operating Advisor, Clayton, Dubilier & Rice

12:15 p.m.

Break

12:30 p.m.

Lunch and Spotlight on Pharmacy Benefit Managers

  • Introduction: Lawton Robert Burns, PhD, MBA
    James Joo-Jin Kim Professor, Health Care Management, Professor, Management, and Co-Director, Roy and Diana Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management, The Wharton School
  • Angela Banks, MBA, MA
    Vice President, Policy, Pharmaceutical Care Management Association
  • Barak Richman, PhD, JD
    Katherine T. Bartlett Professor, Law; Professor, Business Administration, Duke University
  • Moderator: Dan Gorenstein, Executive Editor and Host, Tradeoffs Podcast

1:30 p.m.

Outlook on Drug Pricing: Access, Affordability and Innovation

Conference Sponsors

Arnold Ventures logo

Conference Planning Committee

Speakers

Mark McClellan, MD, PhD

Mark McClellan is the Robert J. Margolis Professor of Business, Medicine, and Policy at Duke University and the founding Director of the Duke-Margolis Center for Health Policy. Dr. McClellan is a former administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and former Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). He also served as Senior Director for Health Care Policy and a member of the President’s Council of Economic Advisors at the White House, and as Director of the Health Care Innovation and Value Initiatives at the Brookings Institution. He was the Founding Chair and a Senior Advisor of the Reagan-Udall Foundation for the FDA, serves on the ICER Advisory Board, and is a member of the National Academy of Medicine (NAM). He holds an MD from the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences and Technology and a PhD in Economics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Peter Bach, MD, MPP

Peter Bach is the Chief Medical Officer of Delfi Diagnostics, a company that develops liquid biopsy tests for early cancer detection. Previously, he served as Senior Advisor for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He is an expert in health policy and payment who is concerned with expanding access to high-quality and affordable cancer care. He holds an MD from the University of Minnesota and an MPP from the University of Chicago.

Angela Banks

Angela Banks, MBA

Angela Banks is the Vice President of Policy for the Pharmaceutical Care Management Association, which is the national association representing America’s pharmacy benefit managers. Previously, she was the Vice President of External Affairs for UnitedHealth Group, where she was responsible for leading a strategic approach to prescription drug and pharmacy care services policy. She specializes in health policy, patient advocacy, and market access, and she holds both an MBA and an MA in Government from Johns Hopkins University.

Troyen Brennan

Troyen Brennan, MD, JD

Troyen Brennan is an Adjunct Professor of Health Policy and Management at Harvard University, where he formerly served as Professor of Medicine and Professor of Public Health. Dr. Brennan also previously held leadership positions at CVS Health, Aetna, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. His recent work focuses on insurers, exploring both government and private policies and their relationship to utilization and spending. He holds an MD and a JD from Yale University.

Lawton Robert Burns, PhD, MBA

Lawton Robert Burns is the James Joo-Jin Kim Professor of Health Care Management and the Co-Director of the Vagelos Program in Life Sciences and Management at the University of Pennsylvania. He is also a Senior Fellow for the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. Recently, he published The Healthcare Value Chain: Demystifying the Roles of GPOs and PBMs, a book examining how group purchasing organizations and pharmacy benefit managers contract with other entities. He holds both a PhD in Sociology and an MBA in Health Administration from the University of Chicago.

Rena Conti, PhD

Rena Conti is an Associate Professor in the Questrom School of Business and an Associate Research Director of Biopharma and Public Policy at Boston University. Her research covers the financing, organization, and regulation of medical care, specifically of prescription drugs used to treat “specialty” conditions. She regularly advises members of the U.S. House of Representatives on the prescription drug market. She holds a PhD in Health Policy with a concentration in Economics from Harvard University.

Stacie Dusetzina

Stacie Dusetzina, PhD

Stacie Dusetzina is a Professor of Health Policy and an Ingram Professor of Cancer Research at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. Her research focuses on the ways in which high-priced drugs impact patient access to care. Notably, she is co-author of “Making Medicines Affordable”, a report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, and serves on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. She holds a PhD in Pharmaceutical Sciences from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Adaeze Enekwechi, PhD, MPP

Adaeze Enekwechi is an Operating Partner at Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe, an investment firm that partners with high-value health care companies. In addition to leading large policy consulting firms, her prior experience includes work at the Congressional Budget Office, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, and the White House Office of Management and Budget. In her work at OMB, she led the Obama Administration’s effort transition to value-based care that appropriately serves vulnerable populations. She holds a PhD in Health Services and Policy from the University of Iowa and an MPP from American University.

Dan Gorenstein

Dan Gorenstein

Dan Gorenstein is the Founder and Executive Editor of Tradeoffs, an award-winning nonprofit media company on a mission to help the folks on Main Street, Wall Street and Capitol Hill have smarter, more honest conversations about health policy. Tradeoffs is supported, in part, by the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, of which Mr. Gorenstein is an Adjunct Senior Fellow. Previously, he worked at Marketplace as a senior health care reporter. He holds a BA in Human Development and Social Relations from Earlham College.

David Grande

David Grande, MD, MPA

David Grande is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine and Director of Policy at Penn LDI. His research focuses on health care for vulnerable populations with an emphasis on identifying and overcoming barriers to care. He also studies ethical issues related to marketing in health care and digital health information privacy. He completed a Master’s in Public Affairs (MPA) at the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University and was a Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholar at the University of Pennsylvania.

Nancy Keating

Nancy Keating, MD, MPH

Nancy Keating is an Associate Physician and a Professor of Health Care Policy and Medicine at Harvard University. Her research examines provider, patient, and health system factors that influence the delivery of high-quality care for individuals with cancer, recently focusing on the effects of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ Oncology Care Model. She holds an MD from the University of Chicago Pritzker School of Medicine and an MPH from the Harvard School of Public Health.

Holly Fernandez Lynch, JD, MBe

Holly Fernandez Lynch is Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics and Law at the University of Pennsylvania, where she is also a Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. Her work focuses on pharmaceutical policy and access, research ethics and regulation, and the ethics of gatekeeping in health care. She is founder and co-chair of the Consortium to Advance Effective Research Ethics Oversight and is currently leading an interview study on regulatory flexibility at FDA, with a focus on required post-market studies. She holds both a JD and an MBe from the University of Pennsylvania.

Jeff Marrazzo, MBA, MPA

Jeff Marrazzo is the Co-Founder and Former CEO of Spark Therapeutics, Inc, the world’s first fully integrated, commercial gene therapy company. During his time with Spark, he spearheaded the development of novel reimbursement models for genetic medicines. He was also formerly an advisor on financing and delivery of health care to then-Governor Edward Rendell. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania and an MPA from Harvard University.

James McSpadden, MDiv, MA

James McSpadden is a Senior Policy Advisor in AARP’s Public Policy Institute, where he focuses on prescription drug pricing, access, utilization, and coverage policy, specifically as it impacts older Americans. Before joining the Public Policy Institute, he was a member of AARP’s government affairs team, supporting AARP state offices as they advocated for a wide range of health policy reforms. He also formerly directed a local nonprofit serving older adults in Washington D.C. He holds a Master’s degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and an MDiv from Duke University.

John O'Brien

John O’Brien, PharmD, MPH

John O’Brien is the President and CEO of the National Pharmaceutical Council, a research organization dedicated to examining the clinical and economic value of pharmaceutical innovation. Dr. O’Brien served as Senior Advisor for Drug Pricing to the U.S.S Secretary of Health and Human Services, held senior roles at CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, and has a variety of academic appointments. He holds a PharmD from Nova Southeastern University and an MPH from Johns Hopkins University.

Barak Richman, PhD, JD

Barak Richman is the Katharine T. Bartlett Professor of Law and and a Professor of Business Administration at Duke University, and starting in 2024, he will be the Alexander Hamilton Professor of Business Law at George Washington University. His areas of research include health law, competition and regulation policy, and institutional economics, and he has served as an advisor to several state attorneys general on healthcare competition policy. He is author of Stateless Commerce: The Diamond Network and the Persistence of Relational Exchange and is a frequent contributor to JAMA and the NEJM. He holds a PhD in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley and a JD from Harvard University.

James Robinson

James Robinson, PhD, MPH

James Robinson is the Leonard D. Schaeffer Endowed Chair of Health Economics and Policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Director of the Berkeley Center for Health Technology, which supports projects examining coverage, management, and payment methods for innovative technologies including biopharmaceuticals, medical devices, and diagnostics. He holds both a PhD in Economics and an MPH in Health Planning and Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.

Meena Seshamani

Meena Seshamani, MD, PhD

Meena Seshamani is the Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicare at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Previously, she served as the Vice President of Clinical Care Transformation at MedStar Health, a not-for-profit health system, where she helped to build new care models and partnerships. Previously, she was the Director of the Office of Health Reform, where she drove implementation of the Affordable Care Act, delivery system reform, and coverage policy. She holds an MD from the University of Pennsylvania and a PhD in Health Economics from the University of Oxford.

Anand Shah

Anand Shah, MD, MPH

Anand Shah is an Operating Advisor at Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics, and Adjunct Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. He was previously Deputy Commissioner of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, as well as Chief Medical Officer of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation where he led the clinical design of value-based service-delivery and payment models. He holds an MD from the University of Pennsylvania and an MPH in Health Care Management and Policy from Harvard University.

Rachel M. Werner

Rachel M. Werner, MD, PhD

Rachel M. Werner is the Executive Director of the Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics. She is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine as well as the Robert D. Eilers Professor of Health Care Management and Economics at The Wharton School and a physician at the Philadelphia VA.