The journey from developing a new drug to ensuring it reaches the patients who need it most is a persistent challenge in the healthcare industry. This complexity is magnified with specialty and rare disease therapies, where the path to patient access is often fragmented and difficult to track. Biopharmaceutical manufacturers have long struggled to gain a clear understanding of how their specialty products are performing in the real world, a problem that data analytics companies are now tackling with sophisticated new tools.
Since 2011, Claritas Rx has been working to improve how biopharmaceutical companies understand their product performance by focusing on patient-level data. The company has evolved from a consultancy into a leader in data integration and analytics, serving a wide range of clients from emerging biotech firms to global manufacturers. By providing a clearer picture of the patient journey, Claritas Rx aims to help ensure that patients with chronic and life-threatening diseases receive the support they need to benefit from their prescribed therapies.
Navigating the Complexities of Specialty Drug Data
Specialty drugs, which are high-cost, high-complexity medications for treating chronic or rare diseases, present unique data challenges. Information is often siloed across various partners, including specialty pharmacies, physician hubs, and payers, making it difficult for manufacturers to get a unified view of the patient journey. This fragmented data landscape can lead to delays in therapy, patient drop-offs, and missed opportunities to improve patient support services. Without a clear understanding of the barriers patients face, manufacturers are limited in their ability to optimize workflows and ensure their treatments are accessible.
The traditional methods of tracking brand performance often involve data lags, which means that by the time a problem is identified, it may be too late to intervene effectively. These delays can have significant consequences for both patients and manufacturers. For patients, it can mean a longer wait to start a much-needed therapy. For manufacturers, it can lead to reduced brand performance and an inability to demonstrate the real-world value of their products. This is the core problem that companies like Claritas Rx are working to solve: providing real-time, actionable insights that can make a tangible difference in patient outcomes.
A Data-Driven Approach to Patient Journey Analytics
Claritas Rx addresses these challenges through its Access Analytics platform, which provides a unified, real-time view of the patient journey. This platform integrates data from across the entire treatment ecosystem, including pharmacies, hubs, 3PLs, and distributors, to provide a single source of truth for all stakeholders. By standardizing key performance indicators and providing intuitive dashboards, the platform allows market access teams to visualize data and manage their channel partners more effectively.
The platform provides insights into a wide range of metrics, including patient enrollments, conversion rates, time-to-fill, and persistence on therapy. This allows manufacturers to identify and address barriers to treatment in real time, rather than waiting for weeks or months for data to become available. According to Michael Fitzgibbons, CEO of Claritas Rx, “Without real-time insights, barriers to treatment go unnoticed, patients face delays, and brand performance suffers.” By providing this level of visibility, the platform empowers teams to make smarter decisions across the entire treatment continuum.
The Power of Collaboration: A Case Study with Servier
A key example of this data-driven approach in action is Claritas Rx’s partnership with the global pharmaceutical company Servier. The collaboration began in 2020 with a focus on two oncology drugs and has since expanded to encompass Servier’s entire cancer treatment portfolio. Athena Uzzo, Senior Vice President of Customer Experience at Claritas Rx, describes the relationship as a “collaborative partnership” focused on answering Servier’s specific business questions. Claritas Rx handles the data aggregation and works with all of Servier’s partners across their brands to deliver analytics insights.
This partnership highlights the importance of a collaborative approach to data analytics. By working closely with their clients, Claritas Rx can tailor their solutions to meet the specific needs of each brand and therapeutic area. This allows for a more nuanced understanding of the patient journey and the development of more effective patient support programs. The success of the Servier partnership demonstrates the value of a data-driven approach in a complex and evolving healthcare landscape.
The Role of AI in Predicting and Preventing Patient Drop-Off
In addition to providing real-time visibility, Claritas Rx also utilizes artificial intelligence to predict which patients are at risk of discontinuing their therapy. The company’s Ascend platform uses AI-assisted models to identify patients who are likely to drop off or abandon their treatment, allowing for proactive intervention. This predictive capability is a significant advancement over traditional reactive approaches to patient support. By foreseeing potential issues before they arise, manufacturers can take steps to address them, improving adherence and overall brand performance.
These AI models analyze a wide range of data points to identify patterns and predict patient behavior. This can include factors such as delays in prescription refills, changes in insurance coverage, or a history of non-adherence. By flagging at-risk patients, the platform enables field teams to engage with them more effectively and provide the support they need to stay on their prescribed therapy. This not only benefits the patient but also provides significant value to the manufacturer by improving refill rates and reducing the number of patients who abandon treatment.
Enhancing Visibility and Collaboration with Specialty Pharmacies
Specialty pharmacies play a crucial role in the patient journey, as they are often the primary point of contact for patients receiving specialty drugs. These pharmacies are uniquely positioned to provide insights into the barriers that can prevent a successful start to therapy and to support patients over time. Recognizing this, Claritas Rx has partnered with specialty pharmacy networks like Turning Point to enhance visibility into the patient journey.
This partnership combines Turning Point’s data with Claritas Rx’s analytics platform to provide manufacturers with longitudinal insights into how patients experience treatment milestones. This collaboration provides a more complete picture of the patient journey, including visibility into treatment initiation and beyond. By working together, Claritas Rx and its specialty pharmacy partners can help manufacturers uncover the real-world drivers that impact patient access and duration of therapy.
The Future of Patient Access
The challenges of ensuring patient access to specialty and rare disease therapies are not going away. As treatments become more personalized and complex, the need for sophisticated data analytics solutions will only continue to grow. Companies like Claritas Rx are at the forefront of this trend, using technology to bring clarity to a once-opaque process. By providing real-time, predictive, and actionable insights, they are empowering biopharmaceutical manufacturers to make more informed decisions and, ultimately, to better serve their patients.
The ability to see and understand the entire patient journey is a powerful tool for improving healthcare outcomes. As data integration and AI technologies continue to advance, the potential to further optimize patient support and remove barriers to care will only increase. The work being done by Claritas Rx and their partners is a clear indication that the future of patient access will be data-driven, collaborative, and focused on ensuring that every patient has the opportunity to benefit from the latest advancements in medical science.