John McMillen:
00:06
Hi, we're lucky enough to be joined today by Dr. Richard Faris, who is the Chief Growth and Strategy Officer at Panther Rare. Richard, thank you so much for your time and your willingness to share some of your expertise and knowledge with our audience. So if you would, would you give us a bit of a background of how you came to be in the in the role you're at with Panther and kind of your career path, if you will?
Richard Faris:
00:32
Thanks, John, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.
John McMillen:
00:35
Right.
Richard Faris:
00:37
I'm a pharmacist by training, obviously. So kind of been in this industry now for over three decades, it's hard to believe, but I've been able to touch a lot of different areas. I also do have a PhD in the pharmacoeconomics and outcomes area, so I have done a lot of work there in the past. I started out in health system pharmacy and really progressed in various ways there leading a health system pharmacy at a university teaching hospital, as well as I spent time inside the pharmaceutical industry. I've spent time as a full-time professor at the University of Tennessee, as well as getting into Specialty Pharmacy a little over 15, actually it's almost 20 years now. And I came here to Panther about six and a half years ago, and really as a as a rare disease pharmacy, Panther really was focused on the specialty drugs where they deal with very small patient populations typically and a little bit more complex therapies. And at Panther we really do focus on either what's called exclusive where we're the only pharmacy that has access to the drugs to be able to dispense them, or as we've defined, highly limited, which is four or less pharmacies in the network. So really focused in on the patients—the very vulnerable population of the rare disease pharmacy.
John McMillen:
02:05
Yeah, when you get into it, it's you find out there's so many different disease states and therapies that are focused on folks that this is the only way that they've got any hope for a future, right? So the patient is always sitting at the center of everything that you're doing at Panther, right?
Richard Faris:
02:24
Correct. And you're right to point out the number of rare diseases. That while rare diseases have been defined to somewhere under 200,000, we obviously see a lot of them that are 500 patients or less. There's 7,000 Rare Diseases. 93% of them do not have an FDA-approved treatment. So there's a huge unmet need in there. And so even though these populations can be small, there's a big unmet need. But if you added all the 7,000 populations up, the estimate is that it will equal the number of people who have diabetes in the US. So it's not small.
John McMillen:
03:04
Oh, my gosh, wow. Unfortunately, that's a huge number, right and growing, which, as I'm sure the case in the rare disease side of it. Wow. That's something that's gonna be paused to think about, because, you know, there's so many disease states out there, but, what, 93% without any type of therapy. Wow. So there's a there's a huge, there's a huge opportunity out there to help more and more patients, right? And she said, It's, unfortunately, probably growing, maybe not as highly or quickly as the diabetic population, but there's still a pretty large growth in those populations over time, I bet. So, with that background, and obviously, you know, with your background as a pharmacist, and as a professor, you know, what's one thing that we're doing now currently in the practice that you'd like to see a STOP to kind of move pharmacy forward?
Richard Faris:
03:55
Yeah, I'll tell you the STOP part of me in the world of pharmacy and it really is a broader healthcare issue, we really think stop racing to the bottom in terms of focusing on lowest cost, particularly lowest unit cost. Because as you know, with pharmacy, we're typically reimbursed based on the cost of the product and not necessarily always reimbursed for the services that we provide. And as you talk about being patient centric, in some way, shape, or form, we need to be reimbursed for the very valuable services that pharmacists and pharmacies provide to these patients, and we need to be thinking about them in their entire care. So I think we need we need to stop that. You know, I mean, I understand why we're focused on cost in some places. But as we look across pharmacy, and we know a lot of especially the corner drugstores, the independent pharmacies, and even some of the bigger chains are really struggling these days. There's an alarming trend in the reimbursement, so it just focuses on "dispense more, dispense more, dispense more" not care.
John McMillen:
05:06
Right. That's a great point, I think if you start to think about everything that we do in pharmacy to help patients, you know, it isn't just getting that medication in the patient's hands, which obviously is core to what we do, but really being able to kind of separate the care from the cost, right, if you will. So that's, that's a great point. So I'm glad you brought that up. You know, so knowing that there's, there's that aspect of it, what's something we should START doing more to help us become more, you know, kind of proactive and better the practice of pharmacy across all the industries?
Richard Faris:
05:40
And I love the practice of pharmacy. As I said, earlier, you mentioned you've met a lot of pharmacists. My wife is a pharmacist. I think as pharmacists too, sometimes we have to take off that white lab coat. And need to START thinking about patients as people. It's really easy to use that word "patient," and it sort of puts them in a box, but really thinking about them outside of even how they use medications. Because if we think about why they would take medications, and it gets to the adherence side of things, that people take medications, not for the therapeutic objective that we've all been trained and that physician that prescribes it for a specific therapeutic objective, but rather start to understand that person on the other end, they have hopes and aspirations, they have moments in life that they want to experience, and how do we tie the medication-taking behavior with them experiencing those moments in life that are most important to them? So I think starting to think about them, and putting ourselves on the other end, and maybe not having that white lab coat on and always want to talk about the clinical stuff, and trying to understand what that person is going through, because they're active participants in the care process.
We really need to partner with them more, as opposed to thinking that "I've got information that I'll share with you. And then it's up to you to take my clinical information I've just given to you and apply it to your life"—but that doesn't really work. And we know we've got a huge adherence problem. But I think stop using the word patient start using the word person.
John McMillen:
07:20
I love that aspect of it. Because it does, it does think about, you know, the whole person and you know, they're mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, you know, people, that have loved ones and friends and things they want to aspire to. And, it does make a mindset change, and really, I think we get caught up, and we're so good at the clinical aspect of it, we want to make sure that that people understand what they're doing. Maybe we need to use more tools that help drive education for people, you know, so they understand why they're taking these meds. And, frankly, that helps us understand why they're taking these medications to, to your point of not just "why": but also the "who," right?
John McMillen:
08:00
There's so much pressure on pharmacies to process as many scripts as possible per hour. And that's the whole thing. You've got to get your metrics down, you talked about stopping the unit cost, right? So maybe we stop using the metric of scripts-per-hour, right? But the tough thing is these are easy to do, right easy to measure, rather than, you know, the kind of the qualitative aspects, which is what you're talking about with that kind of thinking of them as people. So being able to provide tools, you know, like Medical Memory is a great tool that helps people understand why they're taking their medications, they educate them on the medication, and then I think that would help the pharmacist, you know, kind of focus on the people, right? "So I'll send all the information, clinical and everything else, but let's talk about why you're on this and how's it going to impact your lifestyle." So I really love that that aspect of it. You know, so with with the background, and you touched on this earlier, too, was so many everyday, there's a headline of something PBMs or, you know, pharmacies closing and independents, you know, shrinking and, you know, reimbursements are going away. So what's something right now that we're doing that we that you think we need to CONTINUE to do to push practice forward?
Richard Faris:
09:15
Yeah, and the beautiful part about pharmacy if we really are at the intersection of kind of that other side where the physicians, health systems, IDNs; and then a person being in the home and caring for themselves. And so I think we have to CONTINUE to work to reduce barriers, improve access. Affordability is certainly an issue but then as you just mentioned, too, the understanding of the medications that we so desperately need. The healthcare system is so complicated and so chaotic, and so fragmented. And as pharmacists, I think we've always, you know, really prided ourselves on kind of being that neighborhood person, that neighborhood healthcare provider, and I just love that part of pharmacy, let's continue to do it, continue to serve those people that are most vulnerable in our society, and trying to help them because the barriers are, what the issues are. And we all deal with it, whether it's insurance and prior authorizations, and things like that. How do we shield that person from some of those barriers, and really, we're seen more as a partner with them, not another barrier in the system.
John McMillen:
10:26
That's, that's the that's a great point. Right? You see the, the pharmacy more often than anybody else, typically in the healthcare community, right? And so, we want to be that person that's helping the people that are coming to our pharmacy to find out. I mean, I know that's always my first call, whenever there's a medication. I call, I'm lucky enough to know a lots of pharmacists that are great people and always willing to help; I ask their opinion. And to your point about, let's start thinking about how this impacts lifestyle for people. And so that's, that's really the goal of when I talk to my pharmacist friends of "how's this going to impact my life, or my kids" or on medication that's even more important, you know, because, like, I feel like I've made my choices in my life, right? And so but I want to make sure that my kids are getting the best care that they can get.
John McMillen:
11:18
So I really appreciate the time. Anything else that you want to add in that, that maybe you know, the kind of help the pharmacy, you know, with your background and your knowledge, it's great to share your insights with our audience. So I appreciate that.
Richard Faris:
11:33
No, and I appreciate the time here too, John, it's been great to talk with you and go through these. I'm such a huge proponent of what pharmacy can do, and really helping people to live better lives. Let's just keep doing it.
11:45
Absolutely—you're a great advocate for the practice. And we appreciate the time, Richard and we'll talk again soon. Thank you.
Richard Faris:
11:51
All right. Sounds good. Thank you.
00:06
Hi, we're lucky enough to be joined today by Dr. Richard Faris, who is the Chief Growth and Strategy Officer at Panther Rare. Richard, thank you so much for your time and your willingness to share some of your expertise and knowledge with our audience. So if you would, would you give us a bit of a background of how you came to be in the in the role you're at with Panther and kind of your career path, if you will?
Richard Faris:
00:32
Thanks, John, I appreciate the opportunity to be here today.
John McMillen:
00:35
Right.
Richard Faris:
00:37
I'm a pharmacist by training, obviously. So kind of been in this industry now for over three decades, it's hard to believe, but I've been able to touch a lot of different areas. I also do have a PhD in the pharmacoeconomics and outcomes area, so I have done a lot of work there in the past. I started out in health system pharmacy and really progressed in various ways there leading a health system pharmacy at a university teaching hospital, as well as I spent time inside the pharmaceutical industry. I've spent time as a full-time professor at the University of Tennessee, as well as getting into Specialty Pharmacy a little over 15, actually it's almost 20 years now. And I came here to Panther about six and a half years ago, and really as a as a rare disease pharmacy, Panther really was focused on the specialty drugs where they deal with very small patient populations typically and a little bit more complex therapies. And at Panther we really do focus on either what's called exclusive where we're the only pharmacy that has access to the drugs to be able to dispense them, or as we've defined, highly limited, which is four or less pharmacies in the network. So really focused in on the patients—the very vulnerable population of the rare disease pharmacy.
John McMillen:
02:05
Yeah, when you get into it, it's you find out there's so many different disease states and therapies that are focused on folks that this is the only way that they've got any hope for a future, right? So the patient is always sitting at the center of everything that you're doing at Panther, right?
Richard Faris:
02:24
Correct. And you're right to point out the number of rare diseases. That while rare diseases have been defined to somewhere under 200,000, we obviously see a lot of them that are 500 patients or less. There's 7,000 Rare Diseases. 93% of them do not have an FDA-approved treatment. So there's a huge unmet need in there. And so even though these populations can be small, there's a big unmet need. But if you added all the 7,000 populations up, the estimate is that it will equal the number of people who have diabetes in the US. So it's not small.
John McMillen:
03:04
Oh, my gosh, wow. Unfortunately, that's a huge number, right and growing, which, as I'm sure the case in the rare disease side of it. Wow. That's something that's gonna be paused to think about, because, you know, there's so many disease states out there, but, what, 93% without any type of therapy. Wow. So there's a there's a huge, there's a huge opportunity out there to help more and more patients, right? And she said, It's, unfortunately, probably growing, maybe not as highly or quickly as the diabetic population, but there's still a pretty large growth in those populations over time, I bet. So, with that background, and obviously, you know, with your background as a pharmacist, and as a professor, you know, what's one thing that we're doing now currently in the practice that you'd like to see a STOP to kind of move pharmacy forward?
Richard Faris:
03:55
Yeah, I'll tell you the STOP part of me in the world of pharmacy and it really is a broader healthcare issue, we really think stop racing to the bottom in terms of focusing on lowest cost, particularly lowest unit cost. Because as you know, with pharmacy, we're typically reimbursed based on the cost of the product and not necessarily always reimbursed for the services that we provide. And as you talk about being patient centric, in some way, shape, or form, we need to be reimbursed for the very valuable services that pharmacists and pharmacies provide to these patients, and we need to be thinking about them in their entire care. So I think we need we need to stop that. You know, I mean, I understand why we're focused on cost in some places. But as we look across pharmacy, and we know a lot of especially the corner drugstores, the independent pharmacies, and even some of the bigger chains are really struggling these days. There's an alarming trend in the reimbursement, so it just focuses on "dispense more, dispense more, dispense more" not care.
John McMillen:
05:06
Right. That's a great point, I think if you start to think about everything that we do in pharmacy to help patients, you know, it isn't just getting that medication in the patient's hands, which obviously is core to what we do, but really being able to kind of separate the care from the cost, right, if you will. So that's, that's a great point. So I'm glad you brought that up. You know, so knowing that there's, there's that aspect of it, what's something we should START doing more to help us become more, you know, kind of proactive and better the practice of pharmacy across all the industries?
Richard Faris:
05:40
And I love the practice of pharmacy. As I said, earlier, you mentioned you've met a lot of pharmacists. My wife is a pharmacist. I think as pharmacists too, sometimes we have to take off that white lab coat. And need to START thinking about patients as people. It's really easy to use that word "patient," and it sort of puts them in a box, but really thinking about them outside of even how they use medications. Because if we think about why they would take medications, and it gets to the adherence side of things, that people take medications, not for the therapeutic objective that we've all been trained and that physician that prescribes it for a specific therapeutic objective, but rather start to understand that person on the other end, they have hopes and aspirations, they have moments in life that they want to experience, and how do we tie the medication-taking behavior with them experiencing those moments in life that are most important to them? So I think starting to think about them, and putting ourselves on the other end, and maybe not having that white lab coat on and always want to talk about the clinical stuff, and trying to understand what that person is going through, because they're active participants in the care process.
We really need to partner with them more, as opposed to thinking that "I've got information that I'll share with you. And then it's up to you to take my clinical information I've just given to you and apply it to your life"—but that doesn't really work. And we know we've got a huge adherence problem. But I think stop using the word patient start using the word person.
John McMillen:
07:20
I love that aspect of it. Because it does, it does think about, you know, the whole person and you know, they're mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters, you know, people, that have loved ones and friends and things they want to aspire to. And, it does make a mindset change, and really, I think we get caught up, and we're so good at the clinical aspect of it, we want to make sure that that people understand what they're doing. Maybe we need to use more tools that help drive education for people, you know, so they understand why they're taking these meds. And, frankly, that helps us understand why they're taking these medications to, to your point of not just "why": but also the "who," right?
John McMillen:
08:00
There's so much pressure on pharmacies to process as many scripts as possible per hour. And that's the whole thing. You've got to get your metrics down, you talked about stopping the unit cost, right? So maybe we stop using the metric of scripts-per-hour, right? But the tough thing is these are easy to do, right easy to measure, rather than, you know, the kind of the qualitative aspects, which is what you're talking about with that kind of thinking of them as people. So being able to provide tools, you know, like Medical Memory is a great tool that helps people understand why they're taking their medications, they educate them on the medication, and then I think that would help the pharmacist, you know, kind of focus on the people, right? "So I'll send all the information, clinical and everything else, but let's talk about why you're on this and how's it going to impact your lifestyle." So I really love that that aspect of it. You know, so with with the background, and you touched on this earlier, too, was so many everyday, there's a headline of something PBMs or, you know, pharmacies closing and independents, you know, shrinking and, you know, reimbursements are going away. So what's something right now that we're doing that we that you think we need to CONTINUE to do to push practice forward?
Richard Faris:
09:15
Yeah, and the beautiful part about pharmacy if we really are at the intersection of kind of that other side where the physicians, health systems, IDNs; and then a person being in the home and caring for themselves. And so I think we have to CONTINUE to work to reduce barriers, improve access. Affordability is certainly an issue but then as you just mentioned, too, the understanding of the medications that we so desperately need. The healthcare system is so complicated and so chaotic, and so fragmented. And as pharmacists, I think we've always, you know, really prided ourselves on kind of being that neighborhood person, that neighborhood healthcare provider, and I just love that part of pharmacy, let's continue to do it, continue to serve those people that are most vulnerable in our society, and trying to help them because the barriers are, what the issues are. And we all deal with it, whether it's insurance and prior authorizations, and things like that. How do we shield that person from some of those barriers, and really, we're seen more as a partner with them, not another barrier in the system.
John McMillen:
10:26
That's, that's the that's a great point. Right? You see the, the pharmacy more often than anybody else, typically in the healthcare community, right? And so, we want to be that person that's helping the people that are coming to our pharmacy to find out. I mean, I know that's always my first call, whenever there's a medication. I call, I'm lucky enough to know a lots of pharmacists that are great people and always willing to help; I ask their opinion. And to your point about, let's start thinking about how this impacts lifestyle for people. And so that's, that's really the goal of when I talk to my pharmacist friends of "how's this going to impact my life, or my kids" or on medication that's even more important, you know, because, like, I feel like I've made my choices in my life, right? And so but I want to make sure that my kids are getting the best care that they can get.
John McMillen:
11:18
So I really appreciate the time. Anything else that you want to add in that, that maybe you know, the kind of help the pharmacy, you know, with your background and your knowledge, it's great to share your insights with our audience. So I appreciate that.
Richard Faris:
11:33
No, and I appreciate the time here too, John, it's been great to talk with you and go through these. I'm such a huge proponent of what pharmacy can do, and really helping people to live better lives. Let's just keep doing it.
11:45
Absolutely—you're a great advocate for the practice. And we appreciate the time, Richard and we'll talk again soon. Thank you.
Richard Faris:
11:51
All right. Sounds good. Thank you.
