Washington, D.C.-based Children's National Hospital administered Zynteglo, a $2.8 million gene therapy, to its first pediatric patient with the help of Clearway Health.
The hospital had a patient with transfusion-dependent beta-thalassemia, a rare blood disorder, but most health systems aren't equipped to handle the minutiae involved in drugs costing millions of dollars.
More than 54 gene and cell therapies are in the pipeline to be approved by 2030, highlighting a need for hospitals to be ready.
"Navigating a potentially multimillion-dollar drug therapy involves a multidisciplinary approach that can be extremely time intensive and costly for health systems, involving an understanding of payer dynamics, prior authorizations, geographic complexities, patient financial access, assessment of proper staff training, legal and risk management, orchestration of stakeholders and determining a procurement pathway," according to a Jan. 16 Clearway news release.