The committee that sets health care policy for the 143,000 people in Texas prisons meets Oct. 21 in Galveston to hear what gene therapy and engineered cell treatments will mean for a system that already spends more than half its drug budget on two diseases. Public comment comes last, after every other item.
That briefing is the only thing on the agenda that is not a report or a consent vote. Dr. Olugbenga Ojo, chief medical officer at the University of Texas Medical Branch, is listed to present on preparing for the era of gene therapy and CAR-T cell therapy — treatments that re-engineer a patient’s own cells or genes, and that carry some of the highest price tags in medicine. The board book contains no slides and no cost estimate. The context sits in the committee’s own June minutes: HIV and hepatitis C drugs take 55 percent of the entire prison drug budget, and a member asked then that the committee start learning about what is coming next.
The population behind those numbers is large and aging. Through three quarters of fiscal 2026 the system averaged 143,131 people a day across 104 units, of whom 23,765 were 55 or older. Health care cost $886.5 million over those nine months, or $22.69 per inmate per day. Two university systems do the work under contract with the prison agency: the Medical Branch covers about 78 percent of the population and Texas Tech’s health sciences center the roughly 22 percent of it in West Texas.
The rest is housekeeping. A single consent block sweeps up the minutes, excused absences, the quarterly prison monitoring reports on grievances, preventive medicine, restrictive housing and research, and the reports of the two university medical directors. The committee will also pick its 2027 meeting dates.
One seat the governor fills is empty. In June the chairman told the committee the governor’s office was working on an appointment for the Sam Houston State University medical school seat because, in his words, the previous appointee had left the medical school. The October notice does not say whether it has since been filled, and the agenda carries no item for seating anyone new.
Meeting at a glance
- When
- 10:00 AM, Wednesday, October 21, 2026. TRD 2026005645 was filed September 21 at 9:17 a.m.
- Where
- Moody Gardens Convention Center, 7 Hope Blvd., Galveston. The committee is meeting alongside the Medical Branch’s annual correctional managed care conference.
- Governing body & chair
- Correctional Managed Health Care Committee — nine voting members and one nonvoting member under Government Code §501.133. Chairman Robert D. Greenberg, M.D.
- Format
- Nine parts: chair’s report, a four-item consent block, financial reports, medical directors’ updates, one presentation, public comment and adjournment.
- Live video
- The notice gives no stream address and the agency’s meeting page lists none. The Dispatch could not confirm whether this meeting is webcast.
- Full agenda
- Secretary of State Open Meeting Viewer · TDCJ board book
Committee members
- Robert D. Greenberg, M.D. — chairman; Belton; emergency physician, Baylor Scott & White.
- Lannette Linthicum, M.D. — director, prison agency health services division.
- Phillip Keiser, M.D. — University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston.
- Cynthia Jumper, M.D. — Texas Tech health sciences center, Lubbock.
- Brandon Cantazaro, M.D. — McAllen; UT Health Rio Grande Valley; appointed April 2026.
- Gonzalo Perez-Garcia, M.D. — Dallas; psychiatrist; appointed April 2026.
- Divyansu Patel, M.D. — Austin; reappointed April 2026.
- John Burruss, M.D. — Dallas; chief executive, Metrocare Services.
- Susana Penate — Health and Human Services Commission, Medicaid policy.
- Michelle Erwin — seat category not published.
- Kris Coons — San Antonio; term expires February 1, 2027.
Read this list with care. No seat-by-seat roster is published for this committee, and the names above are taken from the attendance list in the June 25, 2026 minutes, carried as a consent item inside the October 21 board book and checked October 19. That list names eleven people for a body Government Code §501.133 gives nine voting seats and one nonvoting seat — and it does so while the chairman was reporting one seat vacant. The Dispatch could not reconcile the count and is not printing which member holds which seat, since neither the prison agency nor the governor’s office publishes that. Cities, specialties and appointment dates are from the governor’s April 2, 2026 and April 24, 2026 appointment releases. The governor designates the chairman under §501.137, and the April 2 release said Greenberg would continue in the post.