Pharmacists as the Authority on Ultra-High-Cost Drugs
Erin Fox, PharmD, MHA, BCPS, FASHP, joined Drug Topics to discuss ultra-high-cost drugs and the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists 2025 Pharmacy Forecast.
Pharmacists’ expertise in medications and managing patients’ prescription regimens makes them the authority, among other providers, for helping patients use and access ultra-high-cost drugs.
Because of their reach in such small amounts of the population, gene and cell therapies have skyrocketed in price, leading to the coining of the term “ultra-high-cost drugs” (UHCDs). According to the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists (ASHP) 2025 Pharmacy Forecast, UHCDs are commonly reserved for rare and orphan diseases, showing little pharmaceutical demand and driving prices up to the millions.
Erin Fox, PharmD, MHA, BCPS, FASHP, was a co-author for the latest edition of the ASHP’s Pharmacy Forecast, contributing to a section titled “Managing Ultra-High-Cost Drugs.” She joined Drug Topics to dive deeper into this section of the report and gave us her thoughts on the pharmacist’s role in helping patients manage these costs.
“Pharmacists can help patients end up being able to access those products, if we can think of good terms that are agreeable to [the] payer as well as the health system,” said Fox. “Pharmacists uniquely—maybe even different than providers—are very familiar with the payer side as well as the clinical side. I think that ability to have that broad view makes them a really helpful asset to the folks at the health system that might be working on that specific contract.”
Stay tuned for weekly podcast episodes on Over the Counter every Thursday afternoon. Check out our previous episode with Jonathan Watanabe, PharmD, MS, PhD, BCGP, who also co-authored a section of the ASHP 2025 Pharmacy Forecast. In our ongoing coverage of the forecast, Watanabe discussed workforce shortages and the role pharmacists play in alleviating them.
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Reference
DiPiro JT, Hoffman JM, Tichy E, et al. ASHP and ASHP Foundation Pharmacy Forecast 2025: Strategic planning guidance for pharmacy departments in hospitals and health systems. AJHP. 2024;82(2). doi.org/10.1093/ajhp/zxae280
