Cardinal Health Announces PatientPak™-340B Program To Deliver Unit of Use Medication Directly to Customers
DUBLIN, Ohio, June 16, 2004 - Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE: CAH), the leading provider of products and services supporting the health care industry, today announced a new service to package and deliver medication in patient-ready, unit of use quantities to federally qualified health care providers.
The program, called PatientPAK™-340B, was designed to improve the efficiency of community health centers by eliminating the need to pour, count and package each prescription. The program will also support health center efforts to improve patient safety by delivering some of the most commonly dispensed medications in patient-ready units that have been prepackaged in the most frequently prescribed quantities.
Cardinal Health developed the program through an exclusive agreement with Dispensing Solutions, Inc (DSI) of Santa Anna, Calif. Under the agreement, DSI, an FDA registered manufacturer, will provide repackaging services and eDispense™, DSI’s proprietary web-based dispensing technology.
Through the PatientPAK-340B program, 340B eligible ‘covered entities’ improve the overall efficiency of their supply chain, reduce or reallocate labor expenses, decrease excess inventory and increase patient safety, all with medication priced significantly below open market rates.
The Texas Association of Community Health Centers has agreed to endorse and co-market the program to eligible covered entities.
“The Texas Association of Community Health Care Centers (TACHC) recognizes Cardinal Health’s efforts to improve efficiency in the marketplace,” said José Camacho, executive director and general counsel, TACHC. “Through an innovative effort and collaborative approach, Cardinal Health has partnered with health centers to solve a myriad of problems and challenges in delivering low cost, state-of-the-art medication to safety-net patients. The PatientPAK™-340B program is the result.”
“We are very excited about the PatientPAK™-340B program,” said Richard Wolpow, co-founder and chief operating officer for DSI. “We have learned that anytime we can help health center increase efficiencies or reduce costs, they are able to give more care to more patients. It’s an offering whose time has come.”
“Cardinal Health remains focused on providing value to health care providers in the 340B marketplace and continues a long-standing tradition of driving costs out of the supply chain,” said Mark Parrish, group president of Pharmaceutical Distribution for Cardinal Health. “This program delivers on that commitment.”
The 340B program is overseen by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), which mandates a federally determined ceiling price for pharmaceutical purchases by entities that provide treatment to patients of HRSA funded grantees. Over 11,000 340B eligible facilities exist and include family planning clinics, community health centers, federally qualified health center look-alikes, disproportionate share hospitals, as well as a wide variety of specialty care clinics.
About Cardinal Health
Cardinal Health, Inc. (www.cardinal.com) is the leading provider of products and services supporting the health care industry. Cardinal Health develops, manufactures, packages and markets products for patient care; develops drug-delivery technologies; distributes pharmaceuticals, medical- surgical and laboratory supplies; and offers consulting and other services that improve quality and efficiency in health care. Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, Cardinal Health employs more than 50,000 people on five continents and produces annual revenues of more than $50 billion. Cardinal Health is ranked No. 17 on the 2004 Fortune 500 list and was named one of the best U.S. companies by Forbes magazine for 2004.
Except for historical information, all other information in this news release consists of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, anticipated or implied. The most significant of these uncertainties are described in Cardinal Health's Form 10-K, Form 8-K and Form 10-Q reports (including all amendments to those reports) and exhibits to those reports, and include (but are not limited to) the costs, difficulties, and uncertainties related to the integration of acquired businesses, the loss of one or more key customer or supplier relationships or changes to the terms of those relationships, changes in the distribution patterns or reimbursement rates for health-care products and/or services, the costs and other effects of governmental regulation and legal and administrative proceedings, and general economic and market conditions. Cardinal Health undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement.
