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The tale of Brandon and Goliath

30 0
01.11.2026

Everyone loves a David and Goliath story: Someone takes on the giant when everyone else is too afraid to try.

Brandon Achor has lived that story. He is a cancer survivor, and so is his wife. He owns independent pharmacies that still serve rural Arkansas in person. And he took on pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), some of the most powerful corporations in American health care.

PBMs decide which drugs get covered, which pharmacies get paid, how much your medicine costs, and which pharmacies even get to exist. When PBMs moved to own pharmacies themselves and steer Arkansas patients to their out-of-state mail-order operations, Brandon helped pass the first law in the nation to stop them. The companies sued, and the fight is now in federal court. Brandon hasn't backed down.

That kind of fight takes someone who has sat in the patient's chair, stood behind the counter, and seen exactly who........

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