Behind the Counter

ANNA YEO
is a video producer and self-taught animator based in Boston and New York. This is her landing page.

In 2024, she earned an Online Journalism Award for a video she produced at STAT about in utero gene editing.

Her work as a documentary associate producer includes the New York Times Critic’s Pick Try Harder! (2021).

She holds a B.A. in Economics and Film Studies from Wesleyan University.

She also takes photos!

annamariayeo@gmail.com
/annamyeo

Affiliations: A-Doc, AAJA, Brown Girls Doc Mafia, Video Consortium

STAT: Behind the Counter

Behind the Counter is STAT’s video series about the role of patents and public health in drug pricing.
I produced, animated, and edited this series at STAT.

Part 1: Innovation vs. Accessibility
Prescription drugs in the U.S. are expensive to develop and difficult to afford. How do we balance the demands of the pharmaceutical industry with the needs of patients?

Part 2: Pharmacy Benefit Managers What are pharmacy benefit managers, or PBMs? How do formularies and rebates work? How do PBMs use them to mediate with drugmakers, health insurers, and pharmacies in ways that influence the cost of drugs?

Part 3: Drug Patents
How does the United States Patent and Trademark Office grant patents to drugmakers?

Part 4: The Hatch-Waxman Act
How do we balance the demands of the pharmaceutical industry with the needs of patients? Learn about the 1984 law that tried to even things out with drug patents — and is still responsible for the way generic drugs are regulated today.

Part 5: Patent Thickets
When a drug patent expires, does a drug’s price goes down? Depending on the type of drug, the number of patents it has, and its placement on health insurance formularies, seeing a meaningful change in the list price of a drug can take anywhere from a few years to almost a decade.