According to a report by Shields Health Solutions, the specialty pharmaceutical market is expected to grow 8% annually through 2025, leaving $118 billion to the market.
Health systems are projected to account for 25%, or $29.5 billion, of that market growth.
The number of specialty pharmacies grew 315 percent to 1,570 specialty pharmacies in 2021 in the U.S., from just 378 in 2015, according to the 2021 Economic Report on pharmacy and pharmacy benefit managers United States Institute of Drug Channels. And hospitals are rapidly coming up, now owning about a third of specialty pharmacies – because they’re lucrative.
In 2019, only 4.9% of commercially insured patients took specialty drugs, but about 50% of total drug spending that year.
But hospital-owned specialty pharmacies are inefficient, Jankowski said.
“Due to the costs associated with specialty drugs, insurance companies want a lot of information, and because these drugs are given to very critically ill patients, a lot of monitoring is required,” says Jankwoski. “If insurance companies are going to pay $18,000 for a shot, we need to make sure patients are asking for this shot and make sure they’re healthy enough to have it and when they should get it.”
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However, there is no single software to manage all the data, leaving pharmacists to manage patient volumes, insurance company claims and track information separately.
“These drugs were once a niche but have become a focus group and the emergence and retention of specialized pharmacies has grown with the proliferation of these drugs,” Jankwoski said. . “But there has never been a good software to manage the difficulty of administering these drugs. Pharmacists have to check your medical records, be able to perform diagnostics and provide a wealth of information to you. payers. Now, we can monitor that in one place.”
Thanks to streamlined information monitoring, the DromosPTM system also provides pharmacies with priority access to specialty drugs that are often hard to find, Jankowski said.
“Pharmaceutical companies want a lot of data,” says Jankowski. “DromosPTM can provide that data, and because the supply is controlled by the pharmaceutical companies, you have a better chance of providing them with the data and, therefore, getting the supply using it. use software.”
