As the Director for the Center for Value-Based Pharmacy Initiatives with UPMC Health Plan, Dr. Good has implemented innovative value based contracts for pharmaceuticals. Prior to coming to UPMC Health Plan, he was the Chair of the Medical Advisory Panel for Pharmacy Benefits Management and Co-Director of the Center for Medication Safety for nearly 20 years. He is a frequent speaker at national conferences and is widely published in the areas of drug safety, appropriate prescribing, conflicts of interest, and cost-effectiveness.
Education & Training
- BS (Biochemistry), University of Maryland, 1979
- MD, George Washington University, 1983
- Residency (Internal Medicine), University of Pittsburgh, 1986
- MPH (Epidemiology), University of Pittsburgh, 1993
Representative Publications
Good CB, Parekh N, Fischer K, Manolis C, Schuster J, Shrank WH. Treating pain: the cannabis conundrum. Annals of Internal Medicine. 2019;170(2):123.
In this commentary, use of cannabis as a treatment for pain is described as a conundrum. Although the evidence basis for use of cannabis is of low quality, clinicians are eager to find non-opioid options to assist patients with chronic pain. More research is needed, however, before these products can be routinely advised for a pain indication.
Hernandez I, Good CB, Shrank W, Gellad W. Trends in Medicaid prices, market share and spending on long-acting insulins, 2006-2018. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2019;321(16):1627-1629.
Using Medicaid data, prices of long-acting insulins from 2005-2018 are presented. Reimbursement for these products averaged 13% annually from 2006-2014, but increases in prices were halted with the introduction of a biosimilar long acting insulin.
Gellad WF, Good CB. Adalimumab and the challenges for biosimilars. Journal of the American Medical Association. 2019.
Biosimilars for adalimumab (Humira) are projected to address expensive biological drug costs high spending in the inflammatory drug space, but newer and potentially better drugs will mitigate savings by replacing adalimumab with patent protected products.
Desai RJ, Good MM, San-Juan-Rodriguez A, Henriksen A, Cunningham F, Hernandez I, Good CB. Varenicline and nicotine replacement use associated with US Food and Drug Administration drug safety communications. JAMA Network Open. 2019;2(9):e1910626
Using varenicline as a case study, a retrospective, longitudinal, cross-sectional study of Veterans Health Administration outpatient data found that early communications from the FDA and VHA followed by a labeling change appeared to be associated with a considerable decrease in drug use, which may have been associated with negative public health consequences.
Click here for a more complete bibliography of Dr. Good’s works.
Research Interests
- Drug safety
- Cost effectiveness
- Value based pharmacy contracting