Community Advanced Therapy Access Drives Equity: Fran Gregory, PharmD

Bringing advanced therapies into community-based settings is as much a health equity issue as it is a logistical one, according to findings from Cardinal Health's 2026 Advanced Therapies Report.¹ The report drew on perspectives from more than 160 physicians and administrators across community practices and health systems.

Why Health Systems Can't Go It Alone

Fran Gregory, PharmD, MBA, vice president of emerging therapies at Cardinal Health, said survey respondents broadly agreed that partnerships between health systems and community practices are essential to sustaining safe, high-quality advanced therapy administration. Community expansion will become necessary as patient volumes exceed what academic medical centers (AMCs) can sustainably manage on their own, she said.

Patients who cannot travel to an AMC, whether due to financial constraints, lack of transportation, or an inability to take extended time away from work, will be the most at risk under the current delivery model, Gregory noted. Ensuring those patients can receive treatment closer to home, she said, is a central reason to advocate for the community-based shift.

“…We want patients to have access to the best treatments,” she said. “We want physicians to have the ability to administer the best treatments that these patients need and deserve to have access to, so there's definitely a movement to get those treatments closer to the patient.”

Equity at the Center of Community Expansion

Geographic and socioeconomic barriers to advanced therapy access fall unevenly across patient populations, Gregory explained. Patients with greater financial means and flexibility are far better positioned to navigate the demands of traveling to a large AMC, which is a disparity that the current model does little to address.

"If we can make [advanced therapies] easier for patients to access, easier for them to logistically get to, then that's going to remove some of those barriers to care that some patients might experience more frequently than others," Gregory said.

She framed the movement toward community-based administration as a meaningful step toward correcting those imbalances, particularly in the space of cell and gene therapies and other innovative treatments.

“…Most providers do want these treatments to be available to patients closer to home,” Gregory said. “I think we all know, if we can make these easier for patients to access, easier for them to logistically get to, then that's going to remove some of those barriers to care that some patients might experience more frequently than others.”

Reference

Cardinal Health report highlights growing momentum to expand advanced therapies into community care settings. News release. Cardinal Health. April 14, 2026. Accessed June 2, 2026. https://newsroom.cardinalhealth.com/2026-04-14-Cardinal-Health-report-highlights-growing-momentum-to-expand-advanced-therapies-into-community-care-settings