Read time: 5 minutes
By: McKesson Editorial Team
Specialty pharmaceuticals continue to be one of the fastest-growing classes of medications. According to IQVIA’s most recent data, specialty medicines now account for 55% of net pharmaceutical spending, driven by growth in the autoimmune and oncology segments. Meanwhile, treatment adherence for those with rare and complex diseases can be challenging due to a number of barriers, including treatment location.
When it comes to navigating the complex specialty marketplace and solving for gaps in the healthcare ecosystem, your health system can expect more from McKesson. The recently launched Atlas Specialty is helping bridge the gap between payers and health system providers by delivering a solution that provides select network access, strategic alliances, and contract standardization.
McKesson experts Crystal Lennartz, PharmD, vice president and general manager of McKesson’s Health Mart Atlas and Atlas Specialty, and Ram Arumugam, RPh, MBA, senior manager of product management with McKesson Strategic Marketing, were recently interviewed for the February print issue of Pharmacy Practice News (PPN) and were featured in a recent Pharmacy Practice News article PSAOs Primed to Unlock Specialty Payor Contracts.
McKesson launched Atlas Specialty with an aim “to expand pharmacies’ payer contracting ability so that they are able to dispense specialty medications and support patients with rare and complex diseases,” Dr. Lennartz said. She added that Atlas Specialty “leverages the strategic relationships with payers and pharmacy benefit managers that were already in place in the retail network space and continues to work with them on specialty network access.”
Noting that health system specialty pharmacy accounts for about one-third of the increase in specialty medications, Ram Arumugam said, “if you want to continue this trajectory, you have to think ahead on how to sustain this growth. We understand that it’s challenging for health systems to navigate this space, but Atlas Specialty was built strategically on the success of Health Mart Atlas—the nation’s largest PSAO.”
You can read the full article here.
Ready to learn more? Click to request information on how McKesson can help with your specialty pharmacy operations, so your health system can focus on what matters most—achieving more for your patients.
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