Customized medicine, or precision medicine, is reshaping the compounding pharmacies market. Precision medicine considers the lifestyle and genetic variation of a patient to provide better health outcomes, especially for those patients with allergies to ingredients in commercial medicine. Compounding allows pharmacists to seek medications that meet patient needs and are prepared based on the ingredient and administration specifications. This means that pharmacies can formulate hard-to-find medications.
North America and the Growth of Compounding Pharmacies
Compounding and hospital pharmacies are major sources for the distribution of precision medicine. The U.S. sees a continuous emergence of retailers that provide customized solutions and rare medications based on patient needs. The precision medicine market was valued at $3 billion in 2019 and is projected to grow substantially through 2026 due to the growth of chronic diseases that are best treated with precision medicine.
The health care industry can greatly benefit from the insights and business intelligence that come from harnessing the power of big data. Data analytics can pinpoint which demographics and geolocations have the greatest needs and demands for specific health care services and medications. One of the best practices for handling a large amount of data from different sources is to leverage data integration automation.
Data integration collects data from disparate sources and provides a unified view, making data more easily available and easier to understand and process by business users. When data integration is done correctly, it reduces IT costs, frees up resources, improves data quality, and fosters innovation. Businesses with mature data integration capabilities enjoy increased operational efficiency by automatically transforming and combining data sets, better data quality, and data transformations that apply business rules, and more valuable insights can be easily analyzed.
Limitless Dosage Options
It can take doctors months or years to find the best treatment for patients suffering from chronic conditions. It’s not uncommon for patients to undergo all available types of treatment only to exhaust all their options without success. Patients who live with chronic pain have limited pain management options due to the limitations on opioids. An example is the pain medication naltrexone, which is designed to help people wean off of opioids. In small doses, this medication helps manage pain; however, most drug companies don’t compound small doses. A compounding pharmacy can overcome dosage issues because it can formulate drugs from raw ingredients and provide the right doses prescribed by doctors.
Availability of Medication
Retail pharmacies inevitably run out of in-demand medications, placing the burden on patients to locate other pharmacies that can fill the prescription. Compounding retailers make prescription medications in-house, which means they never face the hassle of late shipments or back-ordered medications. Even after years of research and lab testing to determine the safety of medications for human use, effective medications don’t work the same for every patient. Not all patients react the same to the percentages of active ingredients and the types and amounts of ingredients. Precision retailers can change inactive ingredients and collaborate with doctors and pharmacists to determine how much of an active ingredient is specific to patients’ needs.
High demand for ivermectin tablets has resulted in shortages and order limitations through commercial drug wholesalers. Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic drug that has proven efficacy in the treatment of parasitic infections such as head lice, scabies, river blindness (onchocerciasis), strongyloidiasis, and lymphatic filariasis. The use of ivermectin also has applications in veterinary medicine for the prevention and treatment of heartworm and acariasis. The good news is that HB Pharmacy is capable of compounding ivermectin from scratch in a compliant cleanroom for patients with a doctor’s prescription. The pharmacy may even be able to fulfill a prescription and ship it to patients the same business day, which means you won’t have to wait long to start treatment.
The longer that people live and cope with chronic conditions that benefit from precision medicine, the more popular precision drug providers are becoming.