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Specialty Pharmacy at a Crossroads, Say Attendees at Asembia’s AXS25 Summit
Key Takeaways
- AI is set to reduce administrative burdens, allowing pharmacists to focus on patient care, though ethical concerns about biases remain.
- Cell and gene therapies require understanding patient positioning in the value chain to ensure appropriate drug and care site matching.
Specialty pharmacy experts and key opinion leaders gathered at Asembia’s AXS25 Summit and discussed critical insights in interviews with Pharmacy Times®.
Specialty pharmacy is changing rapidly. A field once restricted to some of the more complex and difficult-to-treat conditions in the health care landscape, specialty pharmacists are facing a series of transformative trends that are set to reshape the industry. At Asembia’s AXS25 Summit, which took place from April 27 to May 1 in Las Vegas, Nevada, experts on the ground discussed the future of the field and what comes next as groundbreaking therapies emerge and policy shifts occur.
Pharmacy Times® was on-site at Asembia conducting exclusive interviews with opinion leaders and experts to gather key insights and report what the stakeholders of specialty pharmacy are saying about its future. Whether it was the critical need to streamline pharmacy workflows to provide enhanced access to patients or the incoming artificial intelligence (AI) and digital revolution, leaders from across the spectrum of pharmacy emphasized that collaboration, building an experienced team, and patient-centered care will be at the forefront.
Artificial Intelligence is Here, and Here to Stay
Digital tools like AI are poised to redefine how patients interact with their pharmacist. Harry Travis, president of The Travis Group, explored the transformative potential of AI in prescription fulfillment. Highlighting his presentation, “AI and its Impact on Healthcare and Pharmacy - An Introduction,” he believes that AI could free up pharmacists’ time by reducing administrative burdens, allowing them to utilize their existing skills more effectively.1
Harry Travis, president of The Travis Group
Despite the potential improvements, Travis noted potential ethical concerns around using AI to predict patient medication adherence, particularly regarding potential biases in algorithmic decision-making.1
“AI should give the pharmacist more time,” Travis said in an interview with Pharmacy Times. “I don't think the pharmacy team needs to learn anything new; they're trained to do a lot that they can't today because of the administrative burden. Now, you've lightened that load.”1
To fully realize AI’s potential, Travis emphasized 2 crucial areas: “We must work on the regulatory side to lighten up regulations, and then we have to work on the payer side to get them paid. Then, they unleash the skills that they already have.”1
Transformative Therapies Stand to Revolutionize Care
With AI making inroads in all facets of specialty pharmacy, the development of novel treatments has not remained unaffected. As cell and gene therapies remain in nascent stages, Joe DePinto, head of cell, gene, and advanced therapies at McKesson, shared how to navigate associated challenges, emphasizing the need for a thorough understanding of patients and their position in the value chain.2
Joe DiPinto, head of cell, gene, and advanced therapies at McKesson
“The most critical strategy to boosting demand is making sure that there's a good understanding of patients, where those patients sit in the value chain, and how we get the right patient on the right drug,” DePinto said in an interview.2
Highlighting his presentation, "Cell and Gene Therapies Improve Outcomes and Even Cure Diseases—How Do We Accelerate Commercial Uptake?" DePinto shared the importance of matching the right patient with the right drug and site of care.2
“Pharma companies, for the most part, do a good job understanding the patient journey and the product journey,” DiPinto explained. “It's helping to understand where those best available patients sit, picking that best available patient with the site of care to make sure they get access to the groundbreaking science of cell and gene therapy.”2
Exploding in Popularity, GLP-1s Make Their Way Into Specialty
Another innovative therapy widely discussed at Asembia was glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) medications. Known for their roles in weight management and diabetes, they are being increasingly featured in research for specialty conditions. Becky Davis, principal at Charles River Associates in Boston, Massachusetts, addressed the expanding role of GLP-1s and the implications for pharmacy practice, focusing on her presentation “GLP-1s: Riding the Wave of Innovative Medications.”3
The landscape of GLP-1s in specialty medicine is rapidly evolving. With this evolution occurring, Davis anticipates greater patient access as coverage shifts to standard benefits, which will require pharmacists to provide more detailed guidance on dosing schedules.3
“As GLP-1s expand in their indications due to the high comorbidity burden, it's going to be rarer and rarer that you're treating a patient just for obesity,” Davis said in an interview with Pharmacy Times. “Right now, payers force coverage of the obesity indications on an opt-in benefit. It means that not all patients end up having access.”3
Becky Davis, principal, Charles River Associates
As further GLP-1 indications and formulations—such as new injectables and orals—are introduced into the market, Davis emphasized the pharmacist's role in adapting and understanding diverse utilization management requirements and ensuring adequate storage space for these evolving medications.3
“As the indications are brought in, I expect we'll see more of that benefit going to standard benefits,” Davis explained. "The more access to patients, the more patients coming into the pharmacy.”3
Specialty Pharmacists Key to Ensuring Health, Financial Equity
As AI and new therapies continue to make inroads in specialty pharmacy and workflows are adjusted in response, financial impacts to patients are bound to be felt. In response, policymakers from both parties at the federal level have begun to focus more strongly on the pharmaceutical sector in their legislation. One such example is the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), signed into law in 2022 by President Joe Biden, which gives Medicare the power to negotiate drug prices and stands to drastically change specialty pharmacy.4
John Beardsley, senior vice president of corporate strategy at CoverMyMeds, and Fauzea Hussain, vice president of public policy at McKesson, shared their perspectives on the IRA, exploring the operational challenges pharmacies will face with the IRA’s drug pricing reforms. The discussion highlighted their presentation, “Beyond Drug Prices: The IRA's Potential Impact on Healthcare Access and Outcomes.”4
Beardsley focused on the patient benefits of the IRA, highlighting the $2000 maximum out-of-pocket and smoothing program introduced by the IRA that is aimed to benefit individuals on fixed incomes. However, he acknowledged the operational complexities these challenges pose for the supply chain.4
Fauzea Hussain, vice president of public policy at McKesson, and John Beardsley, senior vice president of corporate strategy at CoverMyMeds
“That's going to create complications for everyone else operationally in the supply chain—whether it's pharma, pharmacies, or payers—to implement the smoothing, but that's going to be helpful to those people that maybe are struggling with affordability,” Beardsley said in an interview.4
Hussain echoed the importance of pharmacists’ ability to navigate the new landscape created by the IRA, noting, “As more pharmacists and patients get familiar with the benefits of the program, I think it's going to become even more important for pharmacists to be able to navigate that new world.”4
Shifting to health equity, Shawn Griffin, MD, president and CEO of the Utilization Review Accreditation Commission (URAC), underscored the critical role of leadership in fostering health equity within specialty pharmacy services. Focusing on his presentation, “Advancing Health Equity in Specialty Pharmacy Care,” Griffin stressed the importance of leadership involvement initiatives aimed at improving quality and ensuring equitable outcomes for all patient populations.5
“In any setting, leadership involvement is important because when you have initiatives that talk about improving quality, sometimes the frontline people view it as the flavor of the week,” Griffin said in an interview with Pharmacy Times. “If you don't have the leaders actually involved in supporting it, then they just think it'll go away and it's not something that's core to the organization.”5
Shawn Griffin, MD, president and CEO at URAC
To provide equitable care for all patients, Griffin noted that specialty pharmacies must focus on breaking down barriers such as language differences and medication affordability.5
“When we think about equity, we really are talking about quality,” Griffin said. “It's about looking at all the populations that you serve and making sure that you're getting the outcomes that you want and everybody's getting a fair shake from your services.”5
