Steven Pipe, MD, highlights the growing importance of pharmacists in hemophilia care as new therapies expand treatment complexity and require specialized expertise.
In an interview with Pharmacy Times®, Steven Pipe, MD, a Laurence A. Boxer research professor of pediatrics and professor of pathology at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, discusses how the evolving landscape of hemophilia A and B treatments is expanding the role of pharmacists within care teams. With the advent of non-factor and gene therapies alongside traditional factor replacements, patient management has become increasingly complex, requiring nuanced understanding of mechanisms, monitoring requirements, and risk mitigation strategies. Pipe emphasizes that pharmacists’ expertise is vital in educating the team, optimizing prophylaxis and bleed management, and ensuring coordinated care as the field continues to diversify.
Pharmacy Times: What is the value of the pharmacist in your practice?
Steven Pipe, MD: We have such a plethora of products now, and they require unique insights into their mechanisms of action. Non-factor therapies are coming to the hemophilia B realm as well. Now we’re going to have a portfolio of products that include traditional factor replacements, non-factor therapies, and gene therapies. There are different eligibilities and monitoring characteristics required for these therapies.
There are specific things you need to know. For example, if you’re on therapy A for prophylaxis, what does that mean if you experience trauma or need surgery? What kinds of things do you have to think about in terms of bleed management? There are also risk mitigation factors related to these therapies that you have to be aware of.
I think pharmacists can increasingly have greater roles within the multidisciplinary team. When I think back 20 or 30 years ago, when I started in hemophilia, we had just one platform of therapy for treating patients. All the clinicians and nurse coordinators were on the same page with the knowledge base of how to manage prophylaxis, surgeries, and breakthrough bleeding. But now, with this significant expansion of therapies and mechanisms of action, we need additional expertise in the multidisciplinary team to keep everyone educated and help distribute the load when managing different clinical scenarios. I’m glad we’ve already brought a pharmacist onto our team and look forward to expanding their role in the years to come.
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