In October, 4 massive nonprofit well being techniques — Baylor Scott & White Well being, Memorial Hermann Well being System, Novant Well being and Windfall — shaped Longitude Well being, a company created to reinforce core operational features and remodel well being system efficiency. In its first strategic transfer, Longitude Well being has employed Jigar Thakkar, Pharm.D., M.B.A., because the chief government officer of Longitude Rx, a specialty pharmacy initiative.
Enhancing specialty pharmacy capabilities is the primary initiative for Longitude Well being. The objective is to enhance affected person entry and adherence to specialty drugs by offering options that help well being techniques in managing their specialty pharmacies. Longitude Rx is anticipated to formally launch in early 2025.
Thakkar joins Longitude Well being from OU Well being in Oklahoma, the place he served because the chief administrative officer and chief pharmacy officer. He constructed a specialty pharmacy program for OU Well being that notably grew to $470 million in lower than 4 years. Previous to OU Well being, Thakkar was a managing director at FTI Consulting’s healthcare follow.
“As increasingly more restricted distribution medication enter {the marketplace}, typically within the type of spectacular new cell and gene therapies, well being techniques have to develop new capabilities and approaches to raised help sufferers. Our imaginative and prescient is for sufferers to have entry to those specialty drugs accompanied by the steering and help from extremely specialised pharmacists and ancillary diagnostics to observe their medical responses and alter accordingly,” defined Paul Mango, chief government officer of Longitude Well being, in an announcement. “We’re at an inflection level within the tempo of recent cell and gene remedy introductions. Well being techniques typically face market, regulatory, and aggressive boundaries to acquiring and administering these therapies to their sufferers and communities.”
Hospital specialty pharmacies serve sufferers with advanced well being wants requiring a excessive stage of medical intervention and oversight to their medicine routine. A major problem for sufferers, suppliers and well being techniques alike, these drugs are expensive and sometimes require prior authorization from insurance coverage suppliers to dispense. A objective of Longitude Well being is to create a set of capabilities supporting built-in care that can enhance affected person outcomes, scale back prices, and scale throughout healthcare organizations.
“Longitude Rx will deal with addressing core challenges dealing with well being techniques in accessing specialty drugs and can collaborate with Longitude Well being members to undertake new and revolutionary approaches to surmount these challenges,” Mango added. “Thakkar’s expertise in constructing top-performing specialty pharmacy operations, together with the proficient pharmacy leaders inside the Member organizations, will mix to convey well-tested, and well-respected, experience to the duty of shaping this providing to the wants of well being techniques and their sufferers.”
Longitude Rx stated that whereas some choices present administration instruments for specialty pharmacy, the corporate will deal with the coordination necessities and boundaries that sufferers and suppliers face with accessing and adhering to specialty drugs. It should additionally deal with constructing capabilities to permit well being techniques to be key business individuals within the rising wave of uncommon disease-focused therapeutics anticipated to enter the market over the following 5 to 10 years.
