Research Projects Page

Most institutions utilize a Pharmacy and Therapeutics (P&T) Committee to create a formulary for inpatient administered medications that promotes cost effective treatment options to reduce hospital related drug costs. Due to their high cost, most specialty therapies are omitted from inpatient formularies. We describe the non-formulary process developed at our institution to expedite and overcome challenges created by inpatient administered specialty medications.

The objective of this study was to assess the efficacy of abatacept, adalimumab, and etanercept in pediatric JIA patients through changes in the Physician’s Global Assessment (PGA). We found that the majority of patients saw an improvement in their PGA score. Adverse events were similar across all three biologics, and the most common reason for biologic discontinuation was lack of response to therapy.

This study demonstrated high medication adherence rates and low patient out-of-pocket costs for patients in an integrated clinic and specialty pharmacy. Adherence measured using mean proportion of days covered was 0.89 and 80% of patients were adherent (PDC≥0.80). Rates of financial assistance were high and low out-of-pocket costs were associated with higher adherence.

Rates of persistent viremia (PV), defined as a detectable hepatitis c (HCV) viral load after 4 weeks of direct-acting antiviral (DAA) therapy, were low (5.7%) in a real-world cohort of 983 patients. High sustained virologic response (SVR) rates were achieved both in patients with PV (92.9%) and those with rapid virologic response (RVR) (96.5%), without significant differences.

This report describes a health-system pharmacy department’s response to recovering from a natural disaster and preparing for the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). By detailing our experience and efforts, we hope to help other institutions who are or will be in a similar crisis-response mode.

This study highlighted baseline factors associated with HCV treatment failure in 1,253 patients at four United States institutions. Most likely predictors of treatment failure in our dataset were older age, presence of hepatocellular carcinoma, and private versus public insurance, which appeared in 89%, 84%, and 80% of bootstrap models, respectively.

In this case series, we discuss 7 males between 17 and 39 years of age who reported testicular pain or discomfort within the first two weeks of starting therapy. The precise mechanism of this side effect is unknown, but it may be related to restoration of CFTR function in the male reproductive tract. All patients experienced resolution of this side effect within a week after onset, regardless of the management, exception for one patient.

In this study, we examined patients with osteoporosis prescribed denosumab. We explored the association between treatment lapses and discontinuations with fracture incidence. We also assessed reasons patients incurred a lapse in therapy or discontinued treatment, and discussed the role of the specialty pharmacist in supporting patient adherence and persistence.

The purpose of this study was to explore student education about HIV and related topics using a cross-sectional, population-based survey of U.S. pharmacy schools with a 15-item questionnaire. We found diversity in the amount of time devoted to HIV didactic education among the 37 U.S. pharmacy schools who completed the survey, with some schools providing minimal didactic teaching on the topic of HIV along with low rates of exposure to PLWH in experiential training.