259: Our expensive new normal: why traditional drug cost controls are obsolete

Treatments like cell and gene therapies (CGTs) and GLP-1s are transforming care, but with double-digit growth in drug spend year over year, this transformation comes with an unsustainable price tag. And it’s putting pressure on every part of the healthcare ecosystem, from patients and providers to employers and health plans.

The strategies that purchasers have used to manage drug spend in the past are no longer getting the job done. But when our Advisory Board experts set out to find the innovators creating new ways to rein in spend, they came up empty. Purchasers appear to be stuck in a “wait and see” pattern—but no silver bullets are coming.

This week, host Abby Burns invites Advisory Board experts Chloe Bakst, Aaron Hill, and Amanda Okaka to discuss the drivers behind rising drug costs and why traditional cost-saving strategies are falling short. They provide actionable guidance on how purchasers and plans can modernize their approach to utilization management and make moves toward integrating pharmacy and medical benefits in order to manage total cost of care—in other words, move toward value.

What You'll Learn in This Episode:

• Why drug spend is rising unsustainably
• Why the current efforts to improve drug affordability are helping, but not enough
• What it would look like to bring traditional strategies to manage spend into the 2020s
• What’s on the horizon: the move toward tying drug spend to value

We’re here to help:

• How purchasers are tackling the affordability crisis of high-cost drugs
• 4 ways pharma can improve partnerships for cell and gene therapy delivery
• Cell and gene therapy programs: How to launch, optimize, and deliver CGTs sustainably
• Health Technology Pipeline (HTP)

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A transcript of this episode as well as more information and resources can be found on RadioAdvisory.advisory.com.