P&T Competition Alumni Spotlight: Doug Beeman
Originally published in the June 2022 AMCP Foundation Insights e-newsletter.
The AMCP Foundation National Student Pharmacist Pharmacy & Therapeutics (P&T) Competition is an annual event designed to provide an immersive experience in the skills necessary for effective formulary review and management. We’re pleased to highlight former finalist and P&T judge, Doug Beeman in this spotlight article.
Name: Doug Beeman
Current Title: Sr. Marketing Manager, Genentech
P&T Competition Year(s):
-Student national finalist in 2009 (2nd place) and 2010 (1st Place)
-P&T Competition local judge (UCSF), 2018-2022
What is your role today and your responsibilities?
I’m currently a senior marketing manager within portfolio marketing at Genentech. My primary scope covers Genentech’s commercial engagement strategy with medical/professional societies (including AMCP!), trade associations and practice networks. It’s a fairly unique role, and I love that it allows me to engage with a such wide variety of stakeholders (external as well as internal) and it continues to evolve as Genentech’s portfolio changes over time.
What types of managed care practices do you use in your work?
In some ways nearly everything I work on has a managed care component. Whether it’s working on broad external initiatives with a direct managed care component — evaluating how benefit design impacts health equity as an example — or working with a specific internal product team to evaluate how their value proposition will potentially resonate with managed care customers, I leverage managed care practices often.
What was it like to compete in the national finals for AMCP Foundation’s P&T Competition?
The national finals were truly an unforgettable experience and definitely a highlight of pharmacy school for me. The event itself was certainly nerve-wracking in the lead up, but the memory that sticks is how much fun the team had during the Q&A with the judges. I feel like it was the first time we started to really understand the influence of the pharmacist outside of what we’d experienced in the classroom or direct clinical setting.
When you place the Competition within the broader context of attending the AMCP meeting for the first time – I found the entire experience to be incredibly inspirational and motivating.
What do you recall about the case study, and any specific items from the team assignments?
I actually made it to the national finals twice:
- First evaluating natalizumab (Tysabri®), for Multiple Sclerosis and Crohn’s disease, and
- Second with a therapeutic class review of TPO Receptor Agonists (eltrombopag (Promacta®) and romiplostim (NPlate®)), and their use in the bleeding disorder thrombocytopenic purpura.
With natalizumab, I remember the primary challenge was that it required the team to evaluate a complex biologic across two very distinct disease areas – neither of which we were familiar with; while in the TPO class review we were evaluating newly launched drugs that lacked long-term safety, efficacy or real-world evidence and the existing standard treatment included all therapies used off label without clinical trial evidence. In retrospect, it was a very common scenario even though it seemed daunting at the time.
How did the P&T Competition round out your education, beyond what the PharmD curriculum exposed you to?
At its core, the P&T Competition is about developing critical thinking skills. While a lot of the PharmD curriculum is squarely centered on the knowledge of drugs, the P&T Competition requires you to evaluate how the drug therapy is affecting the patient’s whole life and its impact on the health system. As a student, it was also my first opportunity to start exploring applied pharmacoeconomics and provided us our first chance to develop and defend a formulary decision where there where there wasn’t a ‘correct’ answer.
At the end of the day, I see the P&T Competition as an important way for students to gain experience with P&T process and get exposed to the essence of managed care while providing a unique chance to meet and network with pharmacy leaders in the field.
What interested you in becoming a judge, and in supporting Genentech's Executive Sponsorship of the P&T Competition?
Initially I was interested primarily as way to ‘give back’ to the profession and be a part of an experience that was so impactful in my own journey while also keeping me connected to current students and the AMCP chapter at my alma mater (UCSF). Over time, I’ve also found that it also helps keep me up to speed on the current dossier format, gain insight into how the student curriculum is evolving over time to incorporate managed care concepts and - best of all - connect with local judges, many of whom are former classmates and colleagues.
What advice do you have for pharmacy students?
First and foremost, I absolutely recommend all pharmacy students participate in the P&T Competition. It requires a lot of effort, but it is far and away one of the best learning experiences you can leverage during school, and for many students it’s instrumental in helping them explore and evaluate post-graduates career paths.
I also always emphasize with students that the value of the competition is in the experience itself. Making it to nationals is awesome for sure, but it’s in the countless hours analyzing and evaluating the evidence and developing the team’s recommendation that you truly grow!
And finally, no matter what direction your pharmacy career takes you in, being able to leverage managed care principles is going to be essential for your success. AMCP Foundation's P&T Competition is the perfect way to get started!
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