How Does Launching a Personalized Drug Differ from Other Specialty Drugs?

Thom Cohn, Chief Strategy Officer, Asembia, discusses special considerations for the launch of a personalized drug.

Transcript: Every specialty drug is different, so I think that’s what we’ve learned about specialty is there’s not a lot of cookie cutter. So I think a lot of the issues with launching a personalized drug is kind of the same for specialty.

I think the great part about it, is that we can get patients to a treatment that will work for them sooner. A lot of what we go through is a lot of step therapy, which require a lot of [prior authorizations]. There is the issue that usually those therapies are more expensive, so it’s just making sure the appropriate controls are in place, but I think everyone would say they’d rather a patient start on a therapy that’s going to be effective rather than waste money on a product that’s not going to work for the patient. I think what we have to look at is we need to treat these patients as individuals and not the average patient. It gives us the opportunity to tailor a therapy specifically for that patient. I think it changes how we think about treatment a little bit and pharmacy needs to keep up with that also.