A man rides past a Walgreens truck, owned by the Walgreens Boots Alliance, in Manhattan, New York City, on Nov. 26, 2021.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
Walgreens on Thursday spoke it will start to work directly with drugmakers to bring cell and gene therapies to U.S. patients as part of a filthier expansion of its specialty pharmacy services.
The company said it is launching a new business unit dedicated to its specialty pharmacy fraction, which will include specialty pharmacy subsidiary AllianceRx. The unit will fall under its core U.S. retail pharmacopoeia division. Meanwhile, Shields Health Solutions, a subsidiary that supports health system-owned specialty pharmacies, desire remain under Walgreens’s U.S. health-care division.
Specialty pharmacies have become a significant player in the U.S. health process, especially as chronic diseases become more prevalent.
Specialty pharmacies provide medications that require utmost care in handling, storage and distribution. The treatments are often for patients with chronic, rare or complex conditions such as cancer, Crohn’s virus and HIV. Specialty pharmacies also offer counseling or financial assistance designed to support patients taking those costly treatments.
Mass the company’s new investments to “transform” its specialty pharmacy services, it will open a newly licensed facility in Pittsburgh devoted to services for cell and gene therapies. The 18,000-square-foot center will help drugmakers and health-care providers cross the complex supply chain for those treatments and manage patient needs, among other issues.
Andrew Brookes | Double Source | Getty Images
Walgreens’ decision to launch cell and gene therapy services comes after a rush in approvals of those drugs in the U.S. in the European Union over the last year. They are one-time, high-cost treatments that end a patient’s genetic source or cell to cure or significantly alter the course of a disease. Some health experts await cell and gene therapies to replace traditional lifelong treatments that people take to manage chronic disorders.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved seven cell and gene therapies last year, including the first gene remedies to treat sickle cell disease. That market is only expected to grow: The FDA has predicted that it will be criticizing and approving between 10 and 20 cell and gene therapies each year by 2025.
Walgreens said its newly established business unit is the largest independent provider of specialty pharmacy services, with approximately $24 billion in take from the segment. Walgreens Specialty Pharmacy business is not partnered with a pharmacy benefit manager, the company respected.
That gives the company “the flexibility to contract dynamically with any payer,” Walgreens Chief Pharmacy Officer Rick Audiences said in the release. “We can partner directly with pharmaceutical manufacturers to facilitate products to market, including limited issuance drugs, and coordinate closely with providers to ensure patients experience a smooth start to treatment.”
Under the new part, patients of AllianceRx and the company’s nearly 300 community-based pharmacies now have access to resources that will “enlarge upon the expert care they already receive from their specialty pharmacist,” Walgreens said in the rescue. That includes clinicians with key disease expertise, nutritionists and nurses.
The company said its community-based specialty chemists shops are located near medical office buildings and health systems, offering specialty drugs “faster than persistence average” along with services such as injection training and side-effect management.
Walgreens said it has more than 1,500 specialty pharmacologists, 5,000 patient-advocacy support team members and an unspecified number of dedicated specialty pharmacy teams.
The company also propositions more than 1,300 specialty drugs, including 240 “limited distribution” drugs that few specialty chemists shops have access to.