David Calabrese of OptumRx Talks Top Three Drugs in Pipeline, Industry Trends in Q2

The FDA has already made more than a dozen cancer drug approval decisions this year and more expected in the next several months and in early 2025, according to Kaelyn Boss, who gave an oncology drug pipeline talk at the 2024 AMCP Nexus meeting this week.

In this month’s episode of Tuning In to the C-Suite, Briana Contreras, an editor of Managed Healthcare Executive, got to chatting with Sanjula Jain, Ph.D., chief research officer at Trilliant Health.

Time can be especially precious for people with advanced cancer. Researchers and clinicians are beginning to consider “time toxicity” as another aspect of treatment that burdens patients and their loved ones.

In this month’s episode of the "What's On Your Mind podcast," Peter Wehrwein, managing editor of MHE connects with the now Chief Clinical Officer of OptumRx Integrated Pharmacies, David Calabrese. In this conversation, David touches on his transition in January as OptumRx’s former chief pharmacy officer and market president of health plans and PBMs to his new role as Chief Clinical Officer where he now focuses more on things such as specialty pharmacy to home delivery — with an overall goal of creating whole-patient care. Throughout the conversation, Calabrese also touched on the market’s hot topic of insulin prices and behavioral health services within the OptumRx community, among other topics.

Verastem is studying the combination of avutometinib and defactinib to treat low-grade serous ovarian cancer in patients with KRAS-mutations. The company plans to complete the new drug application in the second half of this year.

Tarlatamab — now with the brand name Imdelltra — is the first approved bispecific antibody for a solid tumor.