How the Treatment Experience for IBD Has Evolved

In an interview with Specialty Pharmacy Times, former NFL placekicker, Rolf Benirschke, CEO of Legacy Health Strategies, discusses how treatment for IBD and Crohn Disease has evolved for patients since his diagnosis in the late 1970s.

Rolf Benirschke: So from my diagnosis in the late ‘70s, the treatments have changed dramatically. We had essentially prednisone [and] oxazolidine. Basically, the physician would say, “go deal with your stress, you obviously can’t handle [the disease] very well.” So, we had to overcome all of this stuff labeled on us, judged on us, to where we have now, all kinds of disease management tools we didn’t have. We didn’t have the biologics, etc.

We have a much more educated physician group, we have the ability to connect with other patients which is huge. But we have the hope that there is more and more research going into our space and bringing more and more potential treatments that hopefully one day can lead to a cure for us. We hardly had that back in the late 70s. That’s hugely important.