Pharmacy Leaders Discuss Innovation and Patient-Centered Care at Asembia’s AXS25 Summit

In a general session at Asembia’s AXS25 Summit, a pharmacy leadership panel centered on some of the ways in which the industry is adapting to better meet patient needs and demands of a constantly evolving health care landscape.

Pharmacy Panel | Image credit: Pearl Steinzor

The panel was moderated by Bruce Japsen, senior health care contributor/columnist, Forbes, and panelists included: Lucille Accetta, RPh, MPH, MBA, senior vice president, chief pharmacy, and head of CVS specialty operations, CVS Health; Thomas Cohn, MS, chief strategy officer, Asembia; Tanvi Patel, MBA, vice president and general manager, Amazon Pharmacy; and Guillermo Sollberger, JD, senior vice president, CenterWell Specialty Pharmacy, Humana Pharmacy Solutions.

Solutions in Specialty Pharmacy

Product launches for oncology and rare orphan gene therapies have taken over within the last 5 years, creating a need within the specialty pharmacy space to manage patient challenges such as access and affordability, explained Accetta.1

“Each and every day, myself and my amazing specialty team, as a leading specialty pharmacy, are focused on how to get patients on quicker to therapy, helping them with the diagnosis and then keeping them on that journey of adherence,” said Accetta.

The panelists highlighted the importance of integrated care models as a way not only to provide improved clinical outcomes, but also to engage patients to become more adherent and reduce medical costs.

Integrated Care Through Telehealth

One important aspect of improving patient access to care highlighted by the panel surrounded telehealth solutions. However, being in a heavily regulated industry, the panelists mentioned potential challenges around laws and legislation that may hinder telehealth capabilities, especially concerning public health.

An example of this is the test to treat program, launched during the COVID-19 pandemic to streamline access to treatments like nirmatrelvir/ritonavir (Paxlovid; Pfizer). The model has since expanded, with around 37 states permitting pharmacists to test for respiratory illnesses and 13 allowing them to prescribe treatment, explained Accetta. This approach not only improves timely access to care but also leverages the trust and accessibility of pharmacists. However, the expansion of such programs is still shaped by state regulations and legislative efforts, with ongoing advocacy needed to fully unlock the potential of pharmacists in public health.

“Today, there is so much that pharmacists are burdened with administratively that even if they had the allowance to do some more test to treat capabilities in certain states, they may not even have the time,” said Patel. “One of the things that we're really focused on is enabling our pharmacists to operate with their clinical license and just ensuring that what they do have the freedom to do today, to take care of patients, because patients do trust their pharmacists.”

Marketing Directly to Patients

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) marketing and distribution in health care is evolving rapidly, driven by patient demand for convenient, affordable, and safe access to medications, explained Sollberger.

Today, Novo Nordisk announced expanded access to its FDA-approved weight loss medication semaglutide (Wegovy) by partnering with select telehealth providers—Hims & Hers, LifeMD, and Ro—through the NovoCare pharmacy platform.2 This collaboration enables self-paying patients to obtain authentic semaglutide more easily via convenient home delivery, managed by CenterWell Specialty Pharmacy, for a reduced cost of $499 per month compared with previous prices exceeding $1300.

This initiative bypasses traditional pharmacy benefit models by partnering with telehealth providers and CenterWell, enabling patients to either go through a subscription model with physician oversight or use their own provider to access the reduced-cost medication.

“This partnership allows us to provide safe, FDA-approved medication, not compounded, GLP-1 [glucagon-like peptide-1] medication to patients through various means, whether they go through their primary care physician or their own physician, and then go through NovoCare Pharmacy to get the prescription filled, or if they are working with a telehealth provider on a different type of model, where they can do it from the convenience of their home,” explained Sollberger in an interview to The American Journal of Managed Care® (AJMC®).

If this approach proves successful, it’s expected to expand into additional therapeutic areas such as migraine and mental health.

“We are interested in continuing to find innovative ways to reduce the cost, to bring safe, affordable medication to patients that need them,” said Sollberger. “We would be very interested in working with managed care organizations to figure out how they can also take advantage of having the lowest cost access and reducing costs in the system to make sure the right patients get on the right therapy.”

The Next 5 Years

Lastly, the panel discussed where pharmacy is headed in the next 5 years. The panelists all agreed that artificial intelligence (AI) will play a critical role in simplifying health care delivery, increasing transparency, and expanding patient access and choice.

As patients and employers continue to demand cost-effective, flexible care models, AI can unlock powerful insights from existing data to support physicians, pharmacists, and patients in making better, faster decisions. It also promises to reduce routine administrative burdens, freeing health care professionals—especially pharmacists—to focus on higher-level care. However, as the industry embraces this evolution, it must also navigate regulatory concerns, particularly around AI bias and compliance, which could slow implementation.

“Is that going to hold us back,” asked Cohn. “Is the legal and compliance going to allow us to get where we want to be? It's going to be interesting to see where it can be used, where it can’t, and where we're going to be back to documenting things for compliance reasons.”

References

1. Accetta A, Cohn T, Japsen B, et al. Pharmacy leadership panel. Presented at: AXS25; April 29, 2025; Las Vegas, NV.

2. Novo Nordisk expands patient access to authentic, FDA-approved Wegovy via collaborations with multiple telehealth organizations. News release. Novo Nordisk. April 29, 2025. Accessed April 29, 2025. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/novo-nordisk-expands-patient-access-to-authentic-fda-approved-wegovy-via-collaborations-with-multiple-telehealth-organizations-302441147.html