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Sizing up specialty pharmacy

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As in the retail pharmacy arena, the specialty pharmacy market is dominated by a small number of companies, noted the Drug Channels Institute, which has released its 2014-15 Economic Report on Retail, Mail, and Specialty Pharmacies.

“The specialty pharmaceutical boom is reshaping the pharmacy industry’s market structure. Ten companies account for 70% of specialty pharmacy revenues,” stated Drug Channels Institute chief executive officer Adam Fein, the study’s author and an expert on pharmacy economics and the pharmaceutical supply chain.

The report also shows which pharmacies are profiting from the high-cost specialty medicines that treat such diseases as cancer, multiple sclerosis and hepatitis C.

“Such companies as Express Scripts, UnitedHealth, Catamaran, Humana and Prime Therapeutics operate some of the biggest specialty pharmacies,” according to Fein. “Hospitals, physicians and independent companies like Diplomat Pharmacy are vying for position in the booming specialty drug market.”

Retail pharmacy operators, too, are being pushed to rethink their position, especially as generic drug dispensing becomes less profitable, he pointed out.

“The U.S. will soon reach peak generic substitution rates,” Fein explained. “Retail pharmacies are competing away their generic prescription margins by offering discount programs, competing with mail pharmacies for 90-day prescriptions and joining payers’ narrow networks.”


ECRM_06-01-22


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