Dive Brief:
- Civica Rx, a coalition of health systems that banded together in 2018 to make prescription drugs, has made its first delivery and a patient has now been treated with one of its medications.
- Riverton Hospital, an Intermountain Healthcare facility in Utah, received the first batch of vancomycin hydrochloride, an injectable antibiotic that is commonly in short supply for hospitals across the country, Civica Rx said Wednesday.
- The antibiotic will be available to all health systems by the end of the month. Shortly after that, another essential antibiotic, daptomycin, will be made available, according to the company.
Dive Insight:
About one year after launch, Civica Rx has delivered on its promise to supply hospitals with generic medications.
Fed up with the high-cost of drugs and ongoing shortages, particularly for drugs that have been around for years, Utah-based Intermountain Health and other nonprofit systems joined forces. The coalition seeks to provide more predictable pricing and access to drugs for its member hospitals.
Dan Liljenquist, the architect behind the generic drug company, applauded the health systems that came together last year for being willing to tackle the problem. "I'm particularly grateful for the health systems that early on took a risk to come forward and say, 'Look, if we can't solve this, we don't think anybody can,' and leaned in with us to make it happen," he said in a statement Wednesday.
Liljenquist previously outlined for Healthcare Blog what member hospitals could expect when buying from Civica Rx, noting transparency is a key tenet for the nonprofit drugmaker. Civica Rx pledges that:
- Every hospital, regardless of size, will have the same access to products.
- There will be one single market price. A larger system will not enjoy discounts on larger volume purchases.
- Every hospital will have the same contracting terms.
Civica Rx partnered with Danish company Xellia Pharmaceuticals to supply essential antibiotics. The injectable antibiotic, vancomycin, in use now is used to treat serious infections that can be resistant to other antibiotics.
Civica Rx also partnered with London-based Hikima Pharmaceuticals to manufacture 14 other injectable drugs that are also usually in short supply at U.S. hospitals.