Cencora’s Accelerate Pharmacy Solutions Launches Cell and Gene Therapy Enablement Services for Health Systems
Cencora has expanded its support for healthcare providers with the launch of Cell and Gene Therapy Enablement, a new service offered through its Accelerate Pharmacy Solutions business. The offering is designed to help health systems evaluate, develop, launch, and scale cell and gene therapy (CGT) programs as advanced therapies become an increasingly important part of modern healthcare.
Cell and gene therapies have emerged as transformative treatment options for patients living with serious and complex diseases. However, bringing these therapies from regulatory approval to routine patient care requires health systems to establish sophisticated clinical, operational, financial, pharmacy, and patient-access capabilities. Cencora’s new service aims to address these challenges by providing health systems with tailored guidance and support throughout the development and expansion of their CGT programs.
The launch comes at a time when the cell and gene therapy market is continuing to expand. As more therapies reach patients and clinical development programs advance, healthcare organizations face increasing pressure to prepare their infrastructure and teams for the unique requirements associated with these treatments.
Helping Health Systems Prepare for Advanced Therapies
Cell and gene therapies differ significantly from many conventional pharmaceutical treatments. Their administration, handling, storage, reimbursement, patient identification, clinical monitoring, and supply chain requirements can require specialized processes and coordination.
For health systems considering whether to establish or expand a CGT program, understanding these requirements is critical. Organizations must assess whether they have the appropriate clinical capabilities, pharmacy infrastructure, financial resources, governance structures, workflows, and patient-support systems needed to deliver these therapies effectively.
Cencora’s Cell and Gene Therapy Enablement service has been created to help health systems navigate these considerations.
Ryan Telford, Vice President of Health System Pharmacy Portfolio Strategy at Accelerate Pharmacy Solutions, Cencora, said cell and gene therapies have the potential to transform care for people with serious and complex diseases. However, he noted that successful delivery requires coordinated execution across multiple areas, including strategy, finance, clinical operations, pharmacy, and patient access.
The new service builds on Cencora’s existing capabilities and is intended to provide health systems with support ranging from market landscape and readiness assessments to governance design, implementation, and ongoing optimization.
Growing Cell and Gene Therapy Landscape
The need for this type of support is being driven in part by the continued growth of the CGT sector.
More than 35 cell and gene therapies have received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, while more than 1,700 clinical trials are underway globally. These clinical development programs include therapies aimed at diseases and indications that could potentially affect larger patient populations.
As the number of approved therapies and clinical programs increases, the healthcare delivery infrastructure needed to administer them must evolve accordingly.
Health systems are increasingly expected to determine which therapies they can support, identify appropriate sites of care, establish specialized workflows, coordinate treatment teams, and develop sustainable financial models.Despite the growing importance of CGTs, many organizations are still developing their capabilities. According to a recent Cencora report, only 4% of surveyed health system pharmacy leaders said their organizations were fully prepared to integrate these therapies.This gap highlights the challenges healthcare organizations face as they prepare for the expanding CGT landscape.
Addressing Infrastructure and Operational Challenges
The complexity of cell and gene therapies means that simply having access to a treatment does not necessarily mean a health system is prepared to deliver it.
Organizations may need to assess existing infrastructure and identify gaps before launching a CGT program. They may also need to establish new governance structures, create specialized workflows, determine staffing requirements, and coordinate responsibilities across multiple departments.
Financial considerations are another important part of the process.
The economics of cell and gene therapy can involve therapy-specific reimbursement considerations, complex payment arrangements, and decisions about the appropriate site of care. Health systems need to understand these factors before committing significant resources to program development.
Cencora’s new service is designed to address these considerations through three primary areas of support: financial confidence, operational readiness, and scalable growth.
Financial Confidence for CGT Programs
The first area of support focuses on helping health systems understand the financial and market considerations associated with cell and gene therapies.
Through CGT market assessments, organizations can evaluate the potential implications of specific therapies and indications. These assessments can include therapy-specific financial considerations, reimbursement dynamics, and site-of-care factors.
Understanding these issues early can help health system leaders make more informed decisions about whether and how to establish a CGT program.
Financial planning is particularly important because advanced therapies can involve different reimbursement structures and operational requirements compared with traditional pharmaceutical products. Health systems must consider not only the cost of acquiring and administering a therapy but also the resources required to build and maintain the infrastructure necessary to deliver it.
By providing support in this area, Cencora aims to help organizations develop greater financial confidence as they evaluate CGT opportunities.
Building Operational Readiness
The second area of the Cell and Gene Therapy Enablement service centers on operational readiness.
Cencora will support health systems through readiness assessments, gap analyses, strategic roadmap development, governance design, and workflow planning.
A readiness assessment can help an organization understand its current capabilities and determine what additional resources or infrastructure may be necessary.Gap analysis can then help identify areas that require improvement before a program is launched or expanded.
Strategic roadmaps can provide health systems with a structured approach for moving from assessment to implementation. Governance design can help establish clear responsibilities and decision-making processes among the various teams involved in CGT delivery.
Workflow planning is also critical because cell and gene therapies can require coordination across numerous stages of the patient journey.Together, these services are intended to help health systems create a more organized approach to launching or expanding CGT programs.
Supporting Scalable Growth
The third component of the offering focuses on helping health systems develop operating models that can support long-term growth.
As additional therapies become available, health systems may need to expand their capabilities across multiple therapies, clinical indications, and sites of care. A model designed around a single therapy or location may not necessarily be sufficient as a program grows.
Cencora’s scalable growth services are intended to help organizations establish repeatable operating models that support coordinated execution across strategy, finance, clinical operations, pharmacy, and patient access.
This approach can help health systems avoid treating every new therapy as an entirely separate operational challenge. Instead, organizations can build standardized processes and frameworks that can be adapted as their CGT portfolios evolve.
Scalability may become increasingly important as more therapies receive regulatory approval and more patients become eligible for advanced treatments.
Connecting Clinical Operations and Patient Access
One of the central goals of the new offering is to help reduce barriers that can prevent eligible patients from accessing advanced therapies.
Delivering cell and gene therapies requires coordination among multiple stakeholders. Physicians and clinical teams must identify appropriate patients, pharmacy teams must manage specialized products and processes, financial teams must address reimbursement considerations, and patient access teams must help patients navigate the healthcare system.
Without effective coordination, these complexities can create delays or other obstacles for patients.Cencora’s approach is designed to bring these functions together within a coordinated operating model. By supporting collaboration among strategy, finance, clinical operations, pharmacy, and patient access teams, the company aims to help health systems improve program execution.
The ultimate objective is to make advanced therapies more accessible to patients who may benefit from them.
Expanding Cencora’s CGT Capabilities
The new Cell and Gene Therapy Enablement service builds on Cencora’s broader presence in the cell and gene therapy ecosystem.The company provides integrated CGT solutions across the product lifecycle. These capabilities include commercialization support for therapy developers as well as specialty distribution and provider solutions intended to support access to therapies across different sites of care.
By combining these existing capabilities with the expertise of Accelerate Pharmacy Solutions, Cencora is expanding the support it can provide to healthcare providers.The company’s experience across specialty pharmaceutical services gives it insight into the challenges associated with bringing advanced therapies to patients. The addition of health system enablement services extends that support further into healthcare delivery organizations.
Collaboration Across Healthcare Stakeholders
Louis Cicchini, Senior Director of Scientific Affairs and Strategic Partnerships for the CGT Service Line at Cencora, emphasized the importance of collaboration in realizing the clinical potential of cell and gene therapies.According to Cicchini, health systems need to strategically expand their capabilities to fulfill the promise of these therapies. He also highlighted the importance of collaboration across traditionally separate areas of healthcare.
This cross-functional approach is particularly relevant to CGTs because their delivery involves more than a physician prescribing a medication.From product logistics and pharmacy operations to patient scheduling, financial planning, clinical monitoring, and long-term follow-up, multiple parts of the healthcare organization must work together.
Creating stronger connections among these functions could help healthcare providers establish more sustainable models for advanced therapy delivery.
Role of Accelerate Pharmacy Solutions
Accelerate Pharmacy Solutions provides pharmacy and supply chain solutions designed to help health systems build, grow, and optimize their pharmacy programs.The organization combines technology with pharmacy and supply chain expertise to support health systems as they address changing healthcare needs.
The introduction of Cell and Gene Therapy Enablement adds another specialized capability to this portfolio. It recognizes that the growing availability of advanced therapies creates new challenges for hospital and health system pharmacy leaders.
Rather than focusing only on the products themselves, the new offering takes a broader approach to program development. It addresses the organizational structures, financial considerations, workflows, and operational capabilities needed to support successful CGT delivery.
Preparing for the Future of Healthcare
The cell and gene therapy market is expected to remain an important area of innovation within healthcare as researchers and developers continue investigating new approaches for treating complex diseases.
As the number of therapies increases, health systems will need to make strategic decisions about how they participate in this evolving field.Some organizations may be preparing to launch their first CGT program, while others may already have established capabilities and need to expand them to additional therapies or locations.
Both situations can require careful planning.
Cencora’s new service is intended to provide support across these different stages, helping organizations assess their current readiness, address operational gaps, establish governance and workflows, and create models capable of supporting future growth.The company’s emphasis on financial confidence, operational readiness, and scalable growth reflects the multidimensional nature of CGT delivery.
Improving Access to Transformative Treatments
Ultimately, the success of cell and gene therapy depends not only on scientific innovation but also on the healthcare system’s ability to deliver these treatments to the patients who need them.A therapy can offer significant clinical potential, but patients may still encounter barriers if healthcare organizations lack the infrastructure, expertise, financial planning, or coordinated processes necessary to provide treatment.
Cencora’s Cell and Gene Therapy Enablement service is designed to help address these delivery challenges by supporting health systems throughout the program development process.Through its combination of market assessment, financial guidance, readiness evaluation, strategic planning, governance design, workflow development, implementation support, and optimization, the offering seeks to help organizations create stronger foundations for CGT care.As advanced therapies continue moving from clinical development into broader clinical use, health systems will play an increasingly important role in making these innovations accessible.
Cencora’s latest initiative represents an expansion of its efforts to support that transition. By bringing together pharmacy, supply chain, clinical, financial, strategic, and patient-access capabilities, the company aims to help health systems prepare for the next phase of cell and gene therapy adoption.
The launch underscores a broader shift in healthcare toward integrated models of care in which successful treatment delivery depends on collaboration across the entire healthcare ecosystem. For patients, providers, developers, and health systems alike, strengthening this infrastructure could help translate the promise of cell and gene therapies into greater access to potentially transformative treatments.
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