Josh (00:00:05) - Hey there, thoughtful listener. Would you like consistent and predictable sales activity with no spam and no ads? I'll teach you step by step how to do this, particularly if you're an agency owner, consultant, coach or B2B service provider. What I teach has worked for me for more than 15 years and has helped me create more than $10 million in revenue. Just head to up my influence and watch my free class on how to create endless high ticket sales appointments. You can even chat with me live and I'll see and reply to your messages. Also, don't forget the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for guests. Go to up my influence.com and click on podcast. We'd love to have you. With us right now, Brandon Newman. Brandon, you were the founder of CEO and chairman at Xevant and Xevant is on the Web at Xevant. That's Zev A and T, Brandon, thank you so much for joining us.

Brandon (00:01:14) - It's a pleasure. Thank you very much. Josh Excited to be here.

Josh (00:01:17) - Yeah. So tell us what Xevant is.

Brandon (00:01:20) - Xevant data analytics for big health care companies who are looking to optimize pharmacy benefits. I know it seems all all not very exciting when you talk about pharmacy benefits, but when you really talk about the the trends in health care, it's all about drugs and the expense of drugs and access to drugs and the very complex environment which we play and we solve for all of that.

Josh (00:01:46) - Yeah. Well, and there's certainly has been a lot of headlines over the past number of years. You know, Mark Cuban's gotten into it. I mean, there's just a lot of people that are trying to improve this world. Where do you fit in from a consumer point of view?

Brandon (00:02:02) - From a consumer point of view, you look at the overall cost of pharmacy itself. Maybe some individual and individual person spends about $1,000 a year, maybe a little bit more, 1200 a year. What we're looking for is helping the consumer to reduce their cost by accessing either, you know, lower cost drugs or access to more appropriate medications or some of the hidden things like rebates, drug rebates and the complexity of of how to access those.

Brandon (00:02:30) - We're about trying to get that all the way down to the end payer, the payer, whether it be me, a patient, all of us or an employer or whoever is paying for that medication, we're all about optimizing to ensure that we can lower those costs and access better health care.

Josh (00:02:47) - And so are you. You're not working with employers you're working with or you're working with the. Well, I'll let you explain. I'm trying to visualize where you are in the food chain here.

Brandon (00:02:59) - I mean, talking to employers is great. We're all about helping employers for the most part. Most employers don't know how to navigate the complexity of pharmacy benefits. And so you end up going to PBMs. Those are pharmacy benefit managers or the health plans of of drugs, right? A pharmacy benefits and of going to payers like health plans tpus and then ultimately the crowded world of consultants and brokers and helping them to manage their employers. So at the end of the day, employers benefit from what we do, but we're going to those that are optimizing on their behalf.

Josh (00:03:33) - Yeah. How come there is so much like just these wild fluctuations in prices for consumers?

Brandon (00:03:43) - Wow. If we could answer that one question and actually successfully do that, I don't think I would need to exist today to be. And to be honest, you got pharmaceutical. So sort of navigate our way through you pharmaceutical manufacturers who make the drug and to get it to the consumers right. We have to to to deliver to wholesalers and distributors who then get it to pharmacies. You've got over 70,000 pharmacies located all over the country. And we're going into the local mom and pop or chain pharmacies to pick it up. That whole process requires a lot of coordination and complexity. And then comes the the, you know, inordinate cost of of of providing it. I can't afford a $20,000 drug when I just show up. And because of that, my employer picks up some of that cost. There is assistance programs, there's drug cards, there's any number of those things. And so then there's negotiated benefits, just like health plans.

Brandon (00:04:38) - And so to be able to just get that drug, there's literally hundreds of edits and process to ensure that I'm an eligible member and I should get that drug and I should get that amount of the drug right. All those rights of of, you know, what a patient should be able to get at the pharmacy. At the end of the day, we're paying for that convenience of being able to show up, get that medication that's sitting on the stock and buying it for a co-pay. Maybe it's $100, maybe it's $20. I take that home and then there's a whole bunch of coordination that happens in the background of which we're optimizing together with all those big players. So wish it was just as simple as, Hey, go pick up the drug like it used to be 60 years ago. Hey, you're getting your your soda, your your deodorant and your prescription. It was just that simple. But now that the complexity of health care, it's not as simple as that. And quite candidly, what we're seeing is health care shifting outside of medical more and more and more.

Brandon (00:05:31) - Yeah, into the biologics in these high cost specialty drugs. But now we're curing diseases. Now we're really removing the cost of of high cost medical cost and moving to the pharmacy. So now pharmacy is becoming the focal point for all of health care.

Josh (00:05:51) - Yes. And so I think it's exciting to imagine what the world will be like. And again, thinking about it, either, you know, from both kind of a consumer or an employee and employer standpoint, like what they're able to provide. Like, you know, if you were to break out the crystal ball, where do you think we're headed?

Brandon (00:06:10) - Oh, wow. Where are we headed? You know, ultimately in terms of where we're headed, if you look at the past, it's the best predictor of the future, Right? And so although they will continue to be new medications coming out at a faster rate. Look at what AI has done for many industries. One of the biggest focal points is around drug development and trying to target very specifically what Josh Elledge needs to mitigate and manage your diagnoses or your health condition, that sort of customization has already begun.

Brandon (00:06:44) - If you look at some of the specialty drugs that have come out, they're not addressing 80% of the market like Lipitor did in addressing cholesterol. They're addressing potentially 0.5% of the market. Yeah, and they're extremely high priced because of that. But by doing so, we're removing some of the really expensive costs on the medical side that were really driving the medical costs. So as we continue to move that dial forward in the future, drug creation will be highly customized. It'll infuse tremendous amount of artificial intelligence, which it already does at an accelerating rate to the point where I've got a medication that's for Brandon Newman that addresses my issues and potentially, you know, eliminate not all, but most of those health care costs in the future. I don't even want to start pontificating on on cell regeneration and all that other fun stuff. That's for the other folks. But for us, we see that coming down the path. That being said, we're merging that sort of innovation with a market that is so complex and almost archaic that we're trying to apply archaic systems to nuanced sort of health care that that it really just doesn't jive.

Brandon (00:07:59) - And so what we're doing at Xevant is making that automation of analysis happen as real time as possible so that we are helping the patient to find the lowest cost drug. They're not just simply saying, give me the green pill instead of that injectable. They're saying, Hey, the green pill is less costly and I can get a rebate or I can get a drug card and I can lower my symptoms or my side effects because I do that. I can do that all in real time through automation.

Josh (00:08:27) - I don't want to overstate this, but I'm sure that you've had conversations, you know, when you're kind of focused on mission purpose values. You know, in theory you're saving lives potentially if you're talking about a consumer. And this is kind of the consumer advocate in me coming out here. But, you know, if you're dealing with a consumer that's struggling to afford the medication, I mean, you're in the United States, right, that they may or may not be able to afford. You know, if you can give them or help them get clarity on the most effective way or, again, the provider to make that data available so that, you know, at the end of the day, you know, that consumer can get the best medication for their situation in the time in the budget that they can afford.

Josh (00:09:14) - Yeah, I mean, that's, you know, potentially life saving or it's certainly an improvement in quality of life.

Brandon (00:09:22) - Well, it's the old adage, right? If you have your if you don't have your health, you have nothing. All the successes and riches in the world, your health really drive whether or not you have something in life. And I believe that a personal story, if I go back ten years ago, I was sitting at the top of my career, 20 years in, I've been in health care all that time, and I felt like I'd learned a lot. And I was a leader, a thought leader in this space. And then all of a sudden I got hit with my diagnosis. Right? That ethereal moment in the last ten years where I sat with my doctor and said, Hey, you might want to get your affairs in order. Those words are the absolute worst words that we could possibly have. And so if I look at the prior 20 years and and doing things in theory versus now, it's personal, right? What I can afford and what I can get really matters.

Brandon (00:10:12) - And I think that really changed and shifted my thinking. It's really what created Xevant to say maybe it wasn't necessarily personally motivated, but I had a personal experience that said, Hey, can I actually access good health care because I have access to my medication and my medication was outside of my reach at the time. So how do I access drug cards and rebates and, you know, alternative medications and then do that in real time? It really wasn't available at the time. And so moving that forward, it sort of created this movement, not just me, but all of us are sort of moving towards that word access just because, you know, you have access, quality and cost. Those are the three components of health care. If I can't afford it, I can't access If I can't access it, I don't have quality. And so you have to address the cost component. And if costs are going through the roof and it's unreachable, what do I do? I either A go to Canada, I go to Mexico.

Brandon (00:11:09) - Go start looking for Mark Cuban and I started looking for alternatives. But what else do I do? I stopped taking my medications because I got to put food on the table. I got to, you know, provide for my family. And if I can't provide those things, I start missing my diabetic medication. I'm not saying that's what I have, but that's what happened in the US, what, ten, 15% of Americans who are dealing with high, high cost of diabetics and all of a sudden the industry in the last six months broke and said no more, we're not going to do that. But had we looked at things a little bit more in automation and analyzing that and identifying those opportunities in more real time, we may not have broken. And really what's resulted as a result is a tremendous amount of effort in regulation to fix these problems and get lower cost to to the end consumer, you and I, so that we can access it, so we can afford it, so that we can have quality of quality lives.

Josh (00:12:03) - You know, of anyone listening to our podcast right now, I suspect that they may know someone that should absolutely be booking a call with Xevant. And what are those? Again and again, maybe use kind of lay language on who those folks might be folks in our network the need to go back, listen to this episode and absolutely grab some time and take a look at what Xevant is doing. So just very specifically, like who are those clients or those potential customers or partners that you're looking for? So I'm going to just sort of back up and say any owner of a business that is looking to afford benefits and do it in a better way, those are really who's benefiting from what we're doing. Can we help them? Yes, we have a number. We have about 18,000 employers that benefit on our platform. We typically go through large brokerages or consulting firms who are managing their benefits. But if you want to take control, call us. We'll help you to identify ways to reduce your least your pharmacy costs by 25%.

Brandon (00:13:02) - And if we're reducing your pharmacy costs by 25, we're actually mitigating your medical cost as well. So at the end of the day, it's not it's not just PBMs, it's not just health plans and payers. It's it's really everybody that's trying to provide a benefit to the the 300 million Americans by way of some sort of employment.

Josh (00:13:22) - Yeah. Your website xevant dot com X E V A N T. What are those? What does that discovery conversation look like? What typically happens in a first call?

Brandon (00:13:38) - Yeah, the first call. What we're finding out is, you know, how are you providing benefits today? How are you providing pharmacy benefits today? What is driving your cost up? We look at your trends. And did you see an increase in drug costs that were greater than what you've typically seen? Do you do you implement programs like clinical programs, dose optimization programs? Do you have access to rebate drug rebate data? Do you have access to to copay programs or drug cards, those sorts of things.

Brandon (00:14:08) - You start breaking down literally about 15 core areas. And before you you know, before you realize you most people just don't have, you know, at least real time access to those programs. And we start unpacking it and running those analysis for them and identifying immediately what those opportunities look like. Most of our clients that go live within days, they are already seeing the cost reductions because we're accessing systems and tools and programs that really are unreachable or are typically waiting, you know, a year later to find out, Hey, I could fix this, but it's so far down the path that, you know, is it really something that they can take advantage of 12 months after the fact? So those are the typical engagement, the points in which we begin to talk to our clients.

Josh (00:14:57) - Yeah. Again, Xevant dot com X E V A N T and Brandon Newman, you're founder, CEO, chairman, congratulations, by the way, on your phenomenal like you let me let me just ask you about the company itself. You know when it was founded, you know, just the growth that you've experienced over the past seven years.

Josh (00:15:18) - Yeah, you know, it's a special story for me. It was one of those that that I started being broken, right? So remember, I started as a vamp after getting that that crazy diagnosis and having that official conversation with my doctor and then realizing that I wouldn't be able to wrestle this thing to the ground, I'd have to go find this unheard power of we. And that's something that we embrace at Xevant. And when I finally decided to let go and trust and truly empower a team, all of a sudden magic happened. And yeah, if you look at the last two years, we've grown close to 2,000%. But because we're focused on the problem and solving real issues and delivering value, not just because we're working really hard, we're doing the things that really matter, that deliver value. And so if I look at two years ago, we were probably less than 20 employees were approaching 100. You know, we've grown over 2,000% in revenue, all those fun things. But, you know, at the end of the day, what I really stand by, the last numbers we ran were at 70 million Americans that we have helped to reduce the cost of health care for.

Brandon (00:16:29) - And that to me, is all that matters. And I'm one of those my five kids are five of those and my wife is one of those. And that's really, at the end of the day that all that we look at is every one of those numbers means that we've reduced the cost by at least some percentage because we did something magical.

Josh (00:16:49) - Those are real people with real life experiences that have been improved so well. Brandon Newman, again, founder, CEO, chairman of Xevant X E V A N T. Brandon, it's been great having you. Thank you so much for joining us.

Brandon (0017:01) - It's a pleasure. Thank you very much. Look forward to the next time. Thank you.

Josh (00:17:11) - Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit up My Influence slash guest. If you're a listener, I'd love to shout out your business to our whole audience for free. You can do that by leaving a review on Apple Podcasts or join our listener Facebook group.

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