On January 12, 2021, ExceleraRx Corp. and Shields Health Solutions announced that they are joining forces to advance the practice of health system specialty pharmacy.
This is an exciting time for us at Excelera. While we will continue to operate independently, as a division of Shields, we will also be able to offer our health system partners more, and more powerful, opportunities in specialty pharmacy.
First, we can now accommodate any health system interested in owned specialty pharmacy, whether they choose to partner with Excelera to launch and/or optimize a specialty pharmacy that the health system owns and operates itself (what we sometimes call “learning to fish”), or they decide that the better path for them is to partner with Shields, which builds and runs in-house specialty pharmacies with its own staff.
“We’re excited for the opportunity to expand our health system partnership approach to incorporate even more offerings to meet health systems’ needs. By partnering with Shields, we can now offer a wider breadth and depth of support to health systems who traditionally haven’t been able to leverage our network offerings due to capital or resource constraints,” said Meredith Holt, MBA, national vp of health system partnerships at Excelera. “
Second, the combination extends our best-in-class care model and high-touch clinical support to more health systems and thus a larger number of complex patients. More than 60 health systems will now have access to more data, insights, innovative programs and care delivery models developed through combined best practices. This is good for patients, good for care teams and good for health systems.
“Excelera has spent years developing its data platform and Business Intelligence suite to help its members measure the effectiveness and the impact of the care they provide, while benchmarking those metrics against those of their like-minded peers”, said Troy Polan, acting ceo at Excelera. “The opportunity to work with Shields and its health systems which share the same mission around high quality complex patient care provides all participants with additional insights and breadth of experience around the entire patient journey managed by these integrated care systems.”
Third, the reach of the combined organization creates an unmatched platform for engaging with manufacturers, payers and Pharmacy Benefits Managers (PBMs). We will have more leverage to be able to unlock access to critical therapies and coverage. The partnership represents nearly $30 billion in specialty pharmacy prescriptions, spanning 43 states, more than 700 hospitals in more than 60 health systems, and about a million specialty patients.
“The complementary services and common mission that Excelera and Shields provide to our key stake holders – manufacturers and health system specialty pharmacies – will allow for simplified and accelerated product life cycle strategies in this growing customer segment,” said Becky Rand, MHRM, vp of manufacturer relations at Excelera. “Our manufacturer partners no longer need to wait to execute on a health system specialty pharmacy program. The footprint, data, and insights along with alignment with the patient and provider experience will allow for undeniable partnership.”
Ultimately, as our health systems grow and expand their specialty pharmacies, the combined network will enhance patient care, improve outcomes and reduce the total cost of care.
