LAKE ZURICH, Ill. [July 10, 2024] - Angels for Change, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending drug shortages, hosted the fifth annual SummitONE conference on July 8 and 9 at Fresenius Kabi’s U.S. headquarters in Lake Zurich, Illinois. SummitONE is the only annual conference that gathers supply chain leaders, drug shortage experts, policy makers, and patients to discuss solutions to end drug shortages.
The theme of the 2024 conference was “ALL IN: Ending Drug Shortages.” Angels for Change founder and Chief Change Maker Laura Bray expressed the need for supply chain members to commit to collaborate to ensure the supply chain is ALL IN for patients. Key insights and takeaways included:
Economics: Presenters broadly agreed that the root cause of most essential medicines shortages was economic. The generic pharmaceutical market is broken and does not reward resource-heavy resiliency and reliability investments. The majority of drug shortages in 2023 were for generic sterile injectables. These medicines are essential to patient care yet valued at less than $2 per dose.
Education: The group was in consensus that educating policy makers and stakeholders on the unique differences of the generic and branded markets is important. The price of branded drugs increases year after year, but the price of most generic medicines decreases every year, sometimes multiple times, leading to unsustainability. In America, one in 10 prescriptions is filled with a branded drug, yet branded drugs account for 85% of all pharmaceutical spending. All stakeholders must amplify each other’s voices.
Shared Information: A demo of the PULSE pilot was shared. PULSE is a new online tool that creates a trusted ecosystem for stakeholders to communicate, report and respond to drug shortages. Pilot members are National Association of Boards of Pharmacy, Angels for Change, and the End Drug Shortages Alliance.
Public-private partnerships must be part of the solution to end drug shortages. Attendees identified the potential of getting creative with public-private partnerships to address drug shortages. Collaborative efforts between government agencies, health care providers, wholesalers, pharmaceutical companies and patients can lead to innovative solutions, shared investment in supply chain resilience and better patient care.
Rewarding Resilience: Purchasers must have a way to evaluate resilience and make purchasing decisions that award resilience accordingly. New reimbursement models and financial incentives can lead to meaningful change.
Trust: To take risks together and make meaningful change, stakeholders must be able to trust each other, and that trust is built working together in person, at events like SummitONE.
SummitONE and its presenting organization, Angels for Change, were created by business professor Laura Bray.
“When my daughter faced shortages of three critical drugs while battling cancer, I decided that I would do my part to ensure that every patient has access to the life-saving drugs they need,” Bray said. “Eradicating drug shortages is a multi-layered, multi-faceted effort, and I would like to thank the panelists, participants, and sponsors involved in SummitONE for their expertise and commitment to our mission.”
A full agenda of the event and list of speakers and panelists is available here.
About Angels for Change
Angels for Change is a volunteer-supported, global, 501c3 organization started in Tampa, Fla. that is on a mission to end drug shortages through advocacy, awareness, and a resilient supply chain. Founder, Laura Bray, was driven to start Angels for Change after her own child faced three life-saving drug shortages in nine months of pediatric cancer treatment. Each day Angels for Change advocates on behalf of any patient in a life-saving drug shortage, while building relationships with patients and members of the pharmaceutical supply chain to end all healthcare crises created by drug shortages. www.angelsforchange.org