As the nation’s health care system has come under intense scrutiny during the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors, nurses and hospital systems, especially those dealing directly with coronavirus patients, have earned accolades for their heroic efforts to save lives and restore health.

Two other components of the health care system — one routinely undervalued, the other often unfairly maligned — have received less attention, as they have stepped up and joined the battle to contain and ultimately vanquish COVID-19. Retail pharmacies and research-based pharmaceutical companies are playing a pivotal role in efforts to bring the crisis to an end.

As COVID-19 took hold in the U.S., retail pharmacies were deemed critical services and exempted from orders to close nonessential businesses. They stayed true to their mission, meeting the medication needs of patients, offering information and counseling about coronavirus and other health care concerns, and — aside from supply chain glitches in such categories as hand sanitizers, disinfectants and paper products — serving front-end shoppers well. Several leading pharmacy operators — Walgreens, CVS Pharmacy, Rite Aid and Walmart, among them — worked with government to open drive-through COVID-19 testing facilities in store parking lots.

The reach of retail pharmacies across the country, the ease of access they provide and, most important, the rapport the professionals who staff the stores have with patients recently prompted the Department of Health and Human Services to issue guidance that authorizes pharmacists to order and administer COVID-19 tests.

By turning to pharmacists to help break the nation’s coronavirus testing bottleneck, a prerequisite for reopening the economy and getting Americans back to work, the federal government is tacitly acknowledging the profession’s untapped potential. Once pharmacy operators put the necessary procedures and safety measures in place (thus far, the companies have been aggressive in finding ways to protect the health of store personnel and customers), they will no doubt prove an invaluable addition to the public health response to COVID-19.

That experience will, in turn, serve the pharmacy sector well as it resumes efforts to expand the scope of practice and move the reimbursement model away from an emphasis on products dispensed to one based on services rendered. After the threat of COVID-19 is past, policy makers should have a much better understanding of the contributions members of the profession can make to solving the persistent problems of access, quality and cost that constrain the effectiveness of U.S. health care.

Other vital building blocks in the arsenal against coronavirus will be provided by pharmaceutical suppliers. Some drug companies, notably Abbott Laboratories and Roche, have ramped up production of existing tests to detect COVID-19 and are developing new diagnostic tools to identify individuals who have developed antibodies to the virus, as well as those who are currently infected. Many other suppliers are engaged in research to pinpoint existing medications that could be useful in countering coronavirus, developing new treatment options, and creating a vaccine that would stop the current plague. Some of the work — animal testing of Gilead Sciences’ antiviral drug remdesivir, for example, or the consortium of suppliers working on plasma transfusions that contain antibodies taken from patients who have recovered — is already generating hope.

Forging weapons that can negate the novel coronavirus, which emerged less than six months ago in China, is a formidable challenge. But based on the pharmaceutical industry’s past performance — the response to HIV-AIDS comes to mind — there is reason to be cautiously optimistic. As Stephen Ubl, president and chief executive officer of PhRMA (Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America), says, “I’m confident our industry will achieve its shared goal to beat coronavirus, and our commitment underscores how we are uniquely positioned to do so. We have deep scientific knowledge gained from decades of experience with similar viruses; the industry has invested billions in technologies that have dramatically shortened the time it takes to decode viruses and develop a potential vaccine; and our companies alone have the ability to manufacture and broadly disseminate vaccines or treatments.”

Although the process may take a year or more, scientists no doubt will come up with a solution. When they do, community pharmacies will be there to get the products to patients and make sure they are used safely and effectively.