On May 5th of this year, a very strange thing happened. For the first time in memory, the Pharmaceutical Benefit Managers, or PBMs, who act as the go-between for patients, insurers, and the biopharma industry, were given a good old fashioned grilling in the US Senate. This will come as no surprise to Gary Branning.

Gary is a Professor at Rutgers Graduate School of Business in Pharmaceutical Management and President of MMR, a health care consulting company that specializes in the reimbursement of medicines in the US healthcare system. With 30 plus years’ expertise in healthcare, Gary is known for his innovative approaches to access and policy issues related to the infinitely complex US healthcare system and the access to new medicines.

In this podcast, Gary unpacks the complex web of how drugs are actually paid for, and outlines the role played by PBMs in keeping money following and controlling the cost of premiums. However, he also outlines how the system of ‘rebates’ driven by beneficiaries and managed by the PBMs is creating confusion and controversy in the delivery of new specialty pharmaceutical products to patients.

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