How Can Specialty Pharmacies Reduce the Cost of Orphan Drugs?

Joy Gilbert, Vice President, Operations, US Bioservices, a part of AmerisourceBergen, discusses the role specialty pharmacies play in helping patients manage drug costs.

Joy Gilbert: It’s interesting, because specialty pharmacies do have a role to play related to cost in orphan products, but as most people in the industry know, the pharmacy doesn’t actually set the price of the product. So it’s our job really to help patients navigate through their own financial barriers related to understanding their insurance benefits, identifying resources for copay assistance and out of pocket burdens that the patient might bear. But we as a pharmacy industry are working within a narrow constraint of product acquisition cost and insurance reimbursement.