Expanding Access to Advanced Therapies Through a Connected Healthcare Model
For patients living with serious and complex illnesses, the journey to an advanced therapy can involve far more than receiving a diagnosis and selecting a treatment. Patients and their families may also have to navigate specialized treatment centers, insurance requirements, transportation, temporary housing, complex scheduling and prolonged monitoring. When these challenges are added to an already difficult medical journey, accessing a potentially transformative therapy can become a significant burden.
Consider Sarah, a working mother whose lymphoma returned after multiple rounds of treatment. Her healthcare team recommended CAR T-cell therapy, an advanced treatment that offered the potential for a durable remission. However, the nearest authorized treatment center was several hours from her home.
To receive treatment, Sarah and her caregiver temporarily relocated. They had to arrange time away from work, find temporary housing and coordinate transportation while preparing for the treatment process. Following the therapy, Sarah remained close to the hospital so her care team could provide intensive monitoring. At the same time, her ongoing care required coordination between her local oncologist and the specialized treatment center.
Fortunately, the treatment worked. But the experience was physically, emotionally and logistically demanding.
Sarah’s experience illustrates a broader challenge facing the healthcare industry. Advanced therapies are transforming the treatment landscape for patients with cancer, rare diseases and other serious conditions, but access to these treatments can remain concentrated in specialized centers.
As scientific innovation continues to accelerate and more cell and gene therapies reach patients, the industry faces an increasingly important question: How can healthcare organizations help eligible patients access these treatments safely, efficiently and closer to their communities?
The Promise and Complexity of Advanced Therapies
Advanced therapies, including cell and gene therapies, represent a significant evolution in the treatment of serious diseases. Rather than relying solely on conventional approaches, these therapies can use sophisticated biological mechanisms to target disease in new ways.
For patients and families, that scientific progress can create new possibilities where previous treatment options may have been limited.However, the complexity of advanced therapies also creates unique challenges for healthcare providers, manufacturers, payers and patients.
Many therapies require specialized handling, storage, administration and monitoring. Some involve highly coordinated treatment pathways in which multiple organizations must work together. Providers may need additional clinical capabilities and infrastructure, while manufacturers must establish distribution and commercialization strategies that account for the unique characteristics of these products.
Patients can experience the consequences of this complexity directly.
A treatment center may be located far from a patient’s home. Insurance and reimbursement requirements may require additional coordination. Providers may need access to specialized information and resources before treatment can begin. Following administration, patients may require monitoring and coordinated follow-up care.These requirements can create barriers even when an advanced therapy is clinically appropriate.
Research Highlights Demand for Expanded Access
The need to address these challenges is becoming more significant as the advanced therapy pipeline grows.
Cardinal Health‘s 2026 Advanced Therapies Report found growing support among providers for expanding advanced therapy administration into outpatient and community settings. The research also highlighted the importance of partnerships and careful clinical, operational and economic planning as healthcare organizations consider how advanced therapies can be delivered more broadly.
Expanding treatment beyond highly specialized centers could potentially make care more accessible to patients who live far from major academic or specialized institutions.
However, expansion requires careful planning.Community providers need the appropriate infrastructure, training and clinical support. Manufacturers need reliable distribution and commercialization capabilities. Payers must navigate coverage and reimbursement considerations. Specialty pharmacies and other healthcare partners need to coordinate medication access, patient support and fulfillment.
No single organization can address every part of this process independently.Instead, expanding access requires a connected model in which different participants in the healthcare ecosystem work together.
Building a Connected Model for Advanced Therapies
As advanced therapies move from scientific breakthroughs into commercial treatment options, manufacturers face a challenge that extends beyond research and development.They must determine how to make these therapies available to eligible patients in a way that is clinically appropriate, operationally effective and financially sustainable.
That requires coordination across several stages of the treatment journey.
Cardinal Health has decades of experience supporting manufacturers through the commercialization process. Its third-party logistics business provides capabilities that include warehousing, distribution, payment solutions, data visibility and regulatory support.
Its specialty distribution network also helps connect manufacturers with healthcare providers across the country.Together, these capabilities can provide infrastructure for manufacturers bringing complex therapies to market while supporting efforts to broaden patient access.
The objective is not simply to move a therapy from manufacturer to provider. Advanced therapies require a more comprehensive approach that considers the needs of manufacturers, providers and patients throughout the treatment journey.
Introducing Innovative Care Pharmacy
Building on this infrastructure, Cardinal Health recently opened Innovative Care Pharmacy, a specialty pharmacy designed to support the unique requirements of cell and gene therapies, rare diseases and other highly specialized treatments.
The pharmacy was developed around the operational and clinical requirements associated with advanced therapies.
Its model includes patient onboarding, payer access support, clinical services, fulfillment and care coordination tailored to individual therapies. These capabilities are intended to help providers and manufacturers navigate some of the complexities associated with advanced treatment delivery.
The pharmacy also provides channel optionality, clinical support and financial solutions designed to help providers procure and administer complex therapies more effectively.For customers that choose to leverage Cardinal Health’s existing third-party logistics and specialty distribution infrastructure, Innovative Care Pharmacy can provide a more connected experience across different stages of the treatment process.
This integrated approach is intended to help reduce fragmentation.Rather than requiring stakeholders to navigate multiple disconnected processes, a connected model can bring together elements of distribution, pharmacy services, clinical support, access coordination and patient services.
Supporting Patients Through the Treatment Journey
Patient support is a particularly important component of advanced therapy access.For patients like Sarah, treatment involves much more than receiving a therapy at a hospital or clinic. There may be multiple steps before treatment begins, including confirming eligibility, navigating payer requirements, coordinating appointments and arranging travel.
After treatment, monitoring and follow-up care may continue for an extended period.A specialty pharmacy focused on advanced therapies can play a role in helping coordinate these activities.
Patient onboarding can help individuals understand the steps involved in accessing treatment. Payer support can assist providers and patients as they navigate coverage requirements. Clinical services can provide specialized support, while fulfillment capabilities help ensure that therapies are available when needed.
Care coordination can connect different participants involved in a patient’s treatment journey.The goal is to make the overall process more manageable while maintaining appropriate clinical oversight.
Data Can Help Improve Advanced Therapy Delivery
Another important component of Innovative Care Pharmacy is its ability to capture clinical, patient-reported and provider-reported data.Data generated throughout the treatment journey can provide manufacturers and healthcare stakeholders with additional insight into how therapies are being accessed and experienced.
Clinical information can contribute to understanding treatment outcomes. Patient-reported information can provide insight into the patient’s experience. Provider-reported information can help identify operational or clinical challenges encountered during treatment.Together, these sources of information can help identify opportunities for improvement.
For manufacturers, the insights may inform commercialization strategies and future approaches to patient support. They may also contribute to evidence-generation efforts and a broader understanding of treatment experiences.For healthcare providers, better information about the treatment journey can help identify areas where processes could be streamlined or support could be strengthened.
For patients, improvements based on these insights could contribute to a more coordinated experience.
The Importance of Collaboration Across Healthcare
Expanding access to advanced therapies cannot be accomplished by specialty pharmacies alone.Manufacturers, payers, health systems, community providers and specialty pharmacies each have distinct roles.
Manufacturers develop therapies and establish the infrastructure needed to bring them to market. Payers help determine coverage and reimbursement pathways. Health systems and providers deliver clinical care. Specialty pharmacies can support medication access, fulfillment, clinical services and coordination.
Community providers may become increasingly important as advanced therapies expand beyond major treatment centers.
Moving appropriate care closer to patients’ communities could reduce some of the logistical challenges associated with traveling long distances for treatment. However, this transition requires providers to have the resources, expertise and infrastructure necessary to administer therapies safely.
Strong partnerships can help build those capabilities.
Reimagining Sarah’s Treatment Experience
Consider what Sarah’s experience could look like within a more connected healthcare ecosystem.Instead of navigating every element of treatment independently, her community physician could have access to a network designed to support advanced therapy delivery.
Providers could receive assistance navigating payer requirements and coordinating treatment. Specialized pharmacy services could support patient onboarding and fulfillment. Clinical resources could help providers understand the requirements associated with the therapy.
Communication among the community provider, treatment center, pharmacy and other stakeholders could help coordinate care.This model would not eliminate the medical complexity associated with CAR T-cell therapy or other advanced treatments. Nor would it remove the need for specialized expertise where that expertise is clinically required.
Instead, the goal would be to reduce unnecessary administrative and logistical barriers while maintaining appropriate clinical standards.For patients, that could mean spending less time navigating fragmented processes and more time focused on treatment and recovery.
Moving Care Closer to Communities
The prospect of expanding advanced therapy administration into outpatient and community settings represents an important development in healthcare delivery.For decades, highly specialized treatments have often been concentrated in major medical centers because of the expertise and infrastructure required.
As experience with advanced therapies grows, healthcare organizations are examining whether some aspects of treatment can be delivered in additional settings.This shift requires careful evaluation.
Not every therapy will be appropriate for every setting, and patient safety must remain central to decisions about where and how treatments are administered.However, where appropriate, expanding access to qualified community providers could give eligible patients additional options.
Such a model could be particularly meaningful for patients who live far from major treatment centers or who face significant travel and financial challenges associated with receiving specialized care.
Combining Clinical, Operational and Financial Support
One of the central lessons from the evolution of advanced therapies is that scientific innovation alone does not guarantee access.A therapy may demonstrate meaningful clinical potential, but patients still need a functioning system through which they can receive it.
That system must account for clinical requirements, distribution, reimbursement, patient support, provider readiness and ongoing coordination.This is why operational and financial planning has become increasingly important alongside clinical planning.
Healthcare organizations need to understand how advanced therapies fit within existing care models and reimbursement structures. Manufacturers need commercialization strategies that can support the therapy after regulatory approval. Providers need appropriate resources and capabilities.
A connected approach can help bring these elements together.
The Broader Impact of Advanced Therapy Access
The importance of improving access extends beyond individual treatment episodes.As more advanced therapies become available, the healthcare system will need to develop scalable approaches for supporting patients across different diseases and geographic locations.
This includes creating infrastructure that can accommodate increasingly complex therapies while ensuring that patients and providers receive appropriate support.It also means recognizing that access has multiple dimensions.
A therapy can be technically available in a country but still difficult for an individual patient to access because of geographic distance, coverage requirements, provider availability or logistical challenges.Addressing these factors can help translate scientific innovation into real-world patient care.
Advancing Access Together
For patients like Sarah, the promise of an advanced therapy is closely connected to the ability to access it.Her experience demonstrates how treatment can become complicated when specialized care is located far from home and when patients must coordinate travel, housing, employment and ongoing monitoring.
A more connected model could help address some of these challenges by bringing together manufacturers, providers, payers, health systems and specialty pharmacies.
Innovative Care Pharmacy represents one component of Cardinal Health’s broader effort to support this evolving healthcare environment. Its focus on advanced therapies, combined with patient onboarding, payer access support, clinical services, fulfillment and care coordination, is designed to address some of the operational challenges associated with highly specialized treatments.
The collection of clinical, patient-reported and provider-reported information also creates opportunities to better understand treatment experiences and identify areas for improvement.As the advanced therapy landscape continues to evolve, collaboration will remain central to expanding access.
The future of advanced therapies will depend not only on developing innovative treatments but also on creating healthcare systems capable of delivering them effectively. Manufacturers, providers, payers, health systems and specialty pharmacies will need to work together to address the clinical, operational and financial complexities associated with these therapies.
The ultimate objective is to help ensure that eligible patients can access appropriate treatments without facing unnecessary barriers.
For patients and families confronting serious illnesses, that could make an important difference. The scientific promise of cell and gene therapies and other advanced treatments is significant, but realizing that promise requires a healthcare ecosystem capable of turning innovation into accessible, coordinated care.
Fran Gregory is vice president of emerging therapies at Cardinal Health. Her professional background includes clinical practice, health economics and outcomes research, and commercial experience across the payer/PBM, specialty pharmacy and biotechnology manufacturer sectors. Her work has focused on complex and innovative pharmaceuticals and on addressing barriers to treatment access and care. She holds a Doctor of Pharmacy from the University of Cincinnati, a Master of Business Administration from Xavier University and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Cincinnati.
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