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Orphan drugs: Support for complex treatments

Hear from OptumRx chief pharmacy officer in this short video

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Orphan drugs: Support for complex treatments

An orphan drug is designated by the FDA to treat a rare condition. In the United States that typically is a condition that affects less than 200,000 people nationally. Today there are about 7,000 orphan diseases that have been identified and about 30 million people in the United States are affected by one of these diseases and sadly, probably about half of those are kids. The orphan drug market is a hot market because this is where the pharmaceutical industry is investing most heavily in terms of research and development. Because a variety of incentives that have been bestowed upon them by the FDA. It's an area where they have very limited barriers to entry and an ability to launch products at very exorbitant price tags. We recently set a new mark in the industry where we had a product that was introduced to market, with a price tag of 2.1 million dollars. It's a challenge and that's what the industry is grappling with right now. That's why we're investing as much time and energy to try and get our arms around this to help our clients, to help the members to ensure that those drugs are made more affordable. And that any safety issues, tolerability issues, are not outweighing any potential benefits that patient may be receiving. The OptumRx Orphan Drug program is a program designed to ensure that patients who are receiving these therapies, caregivers who are caring for these patients and the providers who are writing for these medications, are supported in a much more robust fashion. At OptumRx we conduct what's called a comprehensive medication review. To share that information and to advise the doctor, you know when appropriate, if adjustments need to be made, or and in some instances when it may be best to discontinue therapy, you know because not every patient is going to respond to these drugs. Our job is first and foremost to care for the member, particularly in this case, members with rare diseases, but also we have a job to do in terms of driving cost efficiency for both the client and affordability for the member.

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An orphan disease is a rare condition that affects less than 200,000 Americans nationally. Treatment is usually costly and may not always work. Hear from OptumRx president, David Calabrese, on how we're tackling these complex conditions while ensuring cost efficiency for our clients and affordability for our members.

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Duration: 2 Minutes

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STATEMENT REGARDING FINANCIAL INFLUENCE:
This article is directed solely to its intended audience about important developments affectingthe pharmacy benefits
business. It is not intended to promote the use of any drug mentioned in the article and neither the author nor
OptumRx has accepted any form of compensation for the preparation or distribution of this article.

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