This study evaluates health-system specialty pharmacy (HSSP) pharmacists' roles in medication discontinuations, switches, and dose changes, focusing on cost avoidance. HSSP pharmacists intervene to ensure safe and effective use of specialty medications, preventing unnecessary costs. Pharmacists successfully avoided $129,705 - $162,133 in direct costs through their interventions. These findings support the employment and role of pharmacists in HSSPs, extending beyond prescription filling.

This study evaluated treatment outcomes (adherence, persistence, switching and discontinuation of therapy) and pharmacists' management of adverse events (AE's) in patients on an oral oncolytic for CLL/SLL. In a population of patients initiating oral CLL/SLL therapy through an integrated Health-System Pharmacy, adherence to therapy was high (mean PDC 92%). Adverse effects led to 36% of therapy discontinuations and 72% of therapy switches, indicating an opportunity for pharmacists to manage AE's.

This report discusses reasons anticancer therapies may need to be initiated on admission, challenges of doing so, perspectives and experiences from 3 unique HSSPs on addressing these challenges, and finally, best practice recommendations in managing high cost oral anticancer therapies for admitted patients.

The purpose of this article is to describe medication alternatives available for use in patients with certain bleeding disorders during the intranasal desmopressin recall. Intranasal desmopressin plays a key role in treatment of these patients and the recall is expected to impact availability until mid to late 2023. We hope the details of the article can help other institutions select the best treatment alternative for their patients during this time.

This study found that integrating a pharmacist into clinic significantly shortened time from treatment decision to shipment for LDD drugs, partially overcoming access barriers. Additionally, access to LDDs was still slower than non-LDDs as they cannot be fully integrated into clinic workflow. The integrated specialty pharmacy program adds value to patient access and outperforms LDDs, challenging the value of LDD networks beyond medical economics.

This is a phase IV single-arm study prospectively evaluating the safety and efficacy of apixaban for primary prevention of VTE in patients with MM. The study found that during the 6 month evaluation no patients experienced major hemorrhagic events, MI, stroke, or death. Three patients did have non-major events that were medically managed and one patient discontinued therapy because of an allergic reaction to apixaban.

Ivosidenib is the first approved oral, targeted, small molecule inhibitor of the isocitrate dehydrogenase 1 (IDH1) mutation seen in acute myeloid leukemia. This review article discusses the clinical trials and dose escalation studies conducted to secure the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approval.

This study looked at 21 acute myeloid leukemia patients who had received a hematopoietic cell transplant and experienced relapsed disease. Each patient underwent salvage therapy with a venetoclax- based treatment regimen. Nineteen patients were assessed for treatment response and 12 of the 19 patients responded to venetoclax-based salvage therapy, leading to a 63.2% response rate.