HDMA research finds pharmaceutical distributors key cog in specialty Rx supply chain
ARLINGTON, Va. — New research published last month by the Center for Healthcare Supply Chain Research, HDMA’s knowledge partner, indicated that pharmaceutical distributors provide the specialty pharmaceutical supply chain essential services while efficiently aggregating and delivering thousands of lifesaving medications to a large network of providers for the treatment of critically ill patient populations with chronic or rare diseases.
Conducted by PwC Strategy&, formerly Booz & Company, the research found that the distributors’ significant investments in value-added services in the decision support tools, analysis and reports, consulting and patient service categories provide direct savings to the healthcare industry. For example, a subset of the support services provided to physician’s clinics — including automated and integrated billing and receivable management systems, workforce management tools, revenue cycle and reimbursement services, as well as offerings to enhance the patient experience — represent approximately $1 billion in economic savings to the healthcare sector.
The study noted the role distributors play in ensuring the financial stability of the channel by extending credit to a variety of provider customers. This saves them additional financing costs of 6.5% of their expenditures on specialty drugs.
In addition to these findings:
Specialty medicines continue to represent a large and quickly increasing share of prescription drugs in the U.S. - these medicines are expected to represent 43% of the market share by 2020;
About 90% of all specialty drug sales revenue flows through traditional and specialty distributors; and
Changing industry dynamics, including market consolidation and shifting alliances, the evolving regulatory environment, the introduction of biosimilars and the shift to providing value-based care to patients, are creating challenges and opportunities for trading partners in this segment.
“In an industry segment that is rapidly evolving it is clear that pharmaceutical distributors’ role is as important as ever,” stated Karen Ribler, EVP and COO of the Center for Healthcare Supply Chain Research. “With more unprecedented growth expected for this segment in the future, distributors will continue serve as critical business partners in the years to come.”