IRA Reality Check: Adapting Hub and Copay Programs to Ensure Patient Access and Affordability

In his more than 25-year career, Chris has become a recognized voice in the patient affordability and specialty medication arena, pioneering prominent copay and patient affordability programs, and creating innovative solutions for his clients.

Bill Sarraille is the founder of Sarraille & Associates, a life sciences regulatory consultancy. S&A works with patient groups and rare disease manufacturers on coverage, reimbursement, cost sharing, and access issues.

In addition, Bill is a policy adviser to the HIV and Hepatitis and Policy Institute and to FSHD Society, the patient group focused on a muscular dystrophy which has affected Bill and 5 generations of his family.  He also is a compliance adviser to Accessia Health, which is a 501(c)(3) that assists patients with cost sharing needs. Further, Bill is the General Counsel of the Pharmaceutical Coalition for Patient Access, which is a charitable organization dedicated to launching a mechanism to assist Medicare patients battling cancer. Bill is on the board of directors for both the FSHD Society and Kalderos, a health IT firm.

Finally, Bill is an Adjunct Professor at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law where he teaches pharmaceutical law.

Bill practiced health care law for 34 years, many of those years at Sidney Austin, where he was a Senior Partner in the Health Care and Life Sciences Practices, before his retirement in January.  During his law practice, Bill represented ConnectiveRx.

oel White is the President of the Council for Affordable Health Coverage (www.cahc.net), a role he has held since 2008.

Founded in 2001, CAHC is a non-profit advocacy alliance of the nation’s largest employers, drug manufacturers, health insurers, provider and patient organizations with a singular focus: bringing down the cost of health care so that every American has access to affordable health coverage. CAHC has helped advocate for more than a dozen laws since Joel took the helm.

Prior to CAHC, Joel spent twelve years on Capitol Hill as professional staff, most recently as Staff Director of the Ways and Means Health Subcommittee where he helped enact nine laws, including the:

• Trade Act, which created health care tax credits
• Law that established the Medicare prescription drug benefit and HSAs
• Deficit Reduction Act, and
• Tax Reform and Health Care Act, which reformed Medicare payment policies.

He is the co-author of the book, Facts and Figures on Government Finance (1992), which brings together data on public finance at all levels of government, with comparisons of taxing and spending levels spanning a half century. He holds a BS in Economics from the American University, and lives in Virginia with his wife and three sons.