Josh Marsh Discusses the Role of Technology, Automation in Patient Assistance Programs

Josh Marsh, vice president of Sonexus at Cardinal Health, says that innovations like technology and automation within patient assistance programs can help both patients and manufacturers.

Transcript

How have patient assistance programs in the pharmaceutical industry evolved in recent years?

I've definitely seen a shift over the past 5 to 7 years as a specialty space has grown; more products being launched, more of the patient population being positively impacted by these products coming to the market. I always say that historically, when a brand grew 10%, your patient service program added 10% of new FTEs [full-time equivalents] to the program to support it. Well, that gets very expensive as your brand grows in the market. So, what we've seen is by being able to implement more technology, more automation into the process, we can not only positively impact the patient journey, decreasing that turnaround time, but we're also able to do more for our manufacturers at a lower cost, which is always a goal as well.