Interview

The Hurdles of Insuring Patients with Nano-rare Mutations with Alan Lotvin, M.D.

May 29, 2024

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What’s preventing insurers from covering the specialized care of patients with nano-rare mutations, thereby expanding access to available treatment options? Is it the population size, cost, or perceived risk? Given that the initial discovery of nano-rare mutations is relatively recent, paving the way for this population requires a nuanced approach to overcome various obstacles. Alan Lotvin, M.D., CEO and co-founder of Sequel Med Tech, and former president of CVS Caremark, conceptualizes these hurdles.

On This Episode We Discuss:

2:20 Alan used to be an interventional cardiologist in New Jersey 

4:45 Why Alan left cardiology and eventually pursued specialty pharma 

9:30 Many medications that specialty pharmacies provide need special handling, storage, and administration 

12:30 People aren’t taking their statins, cholesterol-lowering drugs, why not? 

18:02 Discussing the defined thresholds needed to qualify various drugs and procedures 

25:13 Specialty pharmacies are for “hard to handle” drugs 

26:40 How should drugs be marketing ethically? 

31:15 What a Pharmacy Benefit Manager (PBM) does 

37:56 Alan helped build CVS Caremark as President  

41:55 Alan’s Interest in n-Lorem and what’s preventing insurers from covering the specialized care of patients with nano-rare mutations? 

Watch on YouTube:

Alan Lotvin, MD, is the Chief Executive Officer of Sequel MedTech LLC, a company bringing the next-generation of drug
delivery technology to millions of people living with chronic disease.

Previously Alan served as Executive Vice President CVS Health and President CVS Caremark. In this role, Dr. Lotvin led all
CVS Caremark to be the nation’s leading pharmacy benefit management (PBM) business — leading all sales, account
management and operations. Dr. Lotvin also served as executive vice president and chief transformation officer of CVS
Health, and before that executive vice president of CVS Specialty, the specialty pharmacy of CVS Health.

Before joining CVS Health in 2012, Lotvin was president and chief executive officer of ICORE Healthcare, a Magellan Health
Services company. Dr. Lotvin has held multiple roles at Medco Health Solutions, including president of Medco Specialty
Pharmacy Services and senior vice president of Manufacturer Contracting.

Dr. Lotvin holds US Patent #6269819 Method and Apparatus for Circulatory Valve Repair. He is co-author of the book Live
Better, Live Longer.

Lotvin began his career as a practicing cardiologist in New Jersey. He holds a master’s degree in Medical Informatics from
Columbia University and a Medical Degree from the State University of New York Health Sciences Center in Brooklyn.

Credits

Hosted by: Dr. Stan Crooke.
Videographer: Jon Magnuson of Mighty One Productions.
Producers: Colin Delaney, Kira Dineen, Jon Magnuson, Andrew Serrano and Amy Williford.

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Transcript:

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Coming Together for the Nano-rare patient with Dr. John Maraganore

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