Regional News
UPMC signs deal to partner with pharmacy company CarepathRx.
UPMC agreed to deal its pharmacy subsidiary Chartwell to pharmacy management company CarepathRx for $400 million, the organizations announced last week. The health system will become an investor in CarepathRx as part of the deal when the transaction closes in an estimated 30 to 45 days.
Chartwell, a limited partnership between Pittsburghbased UPMC; Butler (Pa.) Health System; Heritage Valley Health System, Beaver, Pa.; and Washington (Pa.) Health System, provides home infusion, specialty pharmacy and enteral nutrition.
It will remain a stand-alone entity, but its back-office operations will be under new management, CarepathRx CEO John Figueroa said, noting that UPMC was particularly interested in CarepathRx’s polypharmacy service for the chronically ill.
“Around 45% to 50% of patients who are leaving the hospital have a chronic disease state or multiple chronic disease states. We help identify the chronically ill and white-label the service (under the UPMC brand) so hospitals and patients stay connected,” he said. “Chartwell’s experience combined with our portfolio puts us in a unique position to take this expertise nationally to every (integrated delivery network) in the country that wants to get into the comprehensive pharmacy business.”
Health systems are looking for new ways to deliver care beyond the walls of a hospital to drive better outcomes at lower costs, said Chronis Manolis, chief pharmacy officer at UPMC Health Plan.
“Chartwell’s agreement with CarepathRx will allow other health systems nationwide to benefit from the pharmacy model that UPMC has created, while delivering even better service for UPMC’s patients and health plan members,” Manolis said in prepared remarks.
The deal rounds out CarepathRx’s acquisition strategy, adding the back-office operations of UPMC’s Chartwell subsidiary to its portfolio of infusion treatment oversight, specialty drug prescription optimization as well as medication management services for chronically ill patients.
About 85% of prescriptions are made in the hospital, but only 5% are filled there, which represents a missed opportunity in terms of revenue and medication adherence management, Figueroa said.
“If we build a company that would allow hospitals to keep all of the prescriptions and patient information connected to the EHR, you would have a quality of care never seen before and the financial opportunity for hospitals to keep prescriptions, instead of having them go out the door,” he said.
Figueroa founded CarepathRx in 2019, along with private equity firm Nautic Partners. ●