Intermountain CEO: Hospital-run generics company may include 1,000+ facilities

The goal of a hospital-run generic drug company is to combat “non-competitive activity” among current generic pharmaceuticals, according to Marc Harrison, MD, CEO of one of the founding companies, Intermountain Healthcare.

In an interview with NEJM Catalyst, Harrison said the motivations for purchasers to want to take over supplying the drugs came from companies becoming a sole supplier for a drug, inflating the price and then abruptly ending production, leaving hospitals to deal with the shortage.

While Harrison mentioned the new company, ProjectRx, wants to put patients first, it’s also not aiming to lose money.

“what we aim to do is to create something akin to a public utility that is going to put public good first, and we think we’re going to be successful because we don’t have an inordinate profit motive,” he said. “We need to make enough margin for this business to be sustainable and to reinvest in it, but we don’t have shareholders, and no money’s going back to the systems. I think that the imperatives are just going to be somewhat different.”

If the new company gets other suppliers to change their practices, Harrison said he’d be fine with not having to supply their own generics. Interest among hospitals, however, could give this venture a wider reach beyond the four founding systems.

“We started with about 450 hospitals. We’ve added well over 100 hospitals in the last couple weeks, and I think we’re going to top out at over a thousand hospitals,” he said.

Read the full interview at the link below: