Another new hub services provider, with an emphasis on independence

Nitin Sahney spent a good part of the first decade of the 2000’s building up RxCrossroads, a fulfillment and patient services business that eventually became part of Omnicare. And as leader at Omnicare, Sahney incorporated RxCrossroads into the Omnicare Specialty Group, which in turn became a key asset when CVS Health bought the entire company. Now, after an 18-month non-compete has ended, Sahney is returning to the field with his own company, PharmaCord LLC, based in Louisville, KY.

PharmaCord will be a patient-support hub services provider, working on behalf of specialty pharma manufacturers on a fee-for-service basis. It will include typical patient support services (prior authorization clearance, reimbursement support, adherence programs, care coordination and the like), along with a pharmacy for fast-launch or refill gap support. All this is being tied together internally with a proprietary data platform called Intersections. All of which is offered, in one form or another, by RxCrossroads and numerous other providers—so what’s the difference?

The key, says Sahney, is independence. “Most of the leading hub providers are either an actual pharmacy benefit manager, or a subsidiary of PBMs or wholesalers,” he says. “We believe that limits the options manufacturers have. We want to act as a pure partner to the manufacturer in dealing with these other entities as clients.” Behind such contractual or channel conflicts is the dilemma of who actually has the relationship with the patient, as expressed by the data generated in coordinating the patient’s care across many healthcare organizations. And by having the right technology (in this case, the Intersections platform), outcomes and related data can be made accessible to the manufacturer—potentially “in real time,” says Sahney.

“Starting with traditional hub services and consigned pharmacy, we layer on clinical and data analytics to create a powerful tool enabling us to operate efficiently, along with increasing the quality and accessibility of actionable data,” says Sahney. “Ultimately, branded and customized programs increase conversion to therapy and improve adherence through personalized targeted outreach.”