In general, specialty medications are high cost medications used for treating complex disease states. They can be
challenging to both manufacture and
... [Show More] administer, and they often require significant patient education and close
monitoring to ensure their safe and appropriate use. Although specialty medications were once a very small piece of the
pharmaceutical industry, there has been a significant change over the last 20 years and especially within the last decade.
Specialty medications are now the fastest growing segment of the pharmaceutical industry. Common characteristics
associated with specialty medications are listed in Table 9.1.
Table 9.1 Specialty Medication Characteristics
High Cost Potential for limited or exclusive availability for
distribution
Complex treatment regimen that require ongoing
monitoring and patient education
Treat rare diseases
Special handling, storage, or delivery requirements Treat diseases known to have long term or severe side
effects or increased fatality
Biologically derived and available in injection, infusion, or
oral form
Payers may define what they consider to be a specialty
medication for reimbursement and contracting purposes.
With the increase in specialty medications over the last two decades, a whole new approach to dispensing these
medications emerged called specialty pharmacies. Generally, specialty medications are not available at typical
community pharmacies, so patients must obtain them through specialty pharmacies. There are many reasons for this:
some practical, some financial, and some clinical. Traditional retail pharmacy is not designed to handle these complex,
costly medications. First, the high cost alone, in many cases, would prohibit retail pharmacies from stocking the
medication. Second, the often-busy nature of a retail pharmacy does not align itself well with being able to appropriately
manage and support the needs of patients with complex disease states. For these reasons, the first specialty pharmacies
began in the early 2000s. Specialty pharmacies are typically required, t [Show Less]