Pharmaceutical Purchasing: a Review of the Landscape and Implications for Antidotal Therapies

The management of the poisoned patient often requires the utilization of uncommonly used pharmaceutical interventions. These interventions can be associated with significant costs to both the patient and treating institution. Pharmaceutical supply shortages and issues with accessibility of antidotal therapies complicate the management of many toxic exposures. These challenges are an inherent property of the pharmaceutical purchasing infrastructure in the United States, which is a complicated network of public and private intra-institutional agreements. The cost and availability of any given therapy is dependent on the individual contracting agreements between the treating institution, payer, pharmacy benefit manager, manufacturer or wholesaler, and in some cases a specialty pharmacy. Small or remote hospitals may experience greater challenges related to insufficient patient volume to achieve predicable prescribing patterns of rare and expensive medications, necessitating consignment purchasing arrangements. Although pharmaceutical costs are the focus of recent legislative attention, these reforms are not expected to significantly alter the cost or availability of antidotal therapies.