Digital Health Community Pharmacy Innovation: HLTH 2024 Podcast Series Part One

Melanie Marcus (00:05):

You are listening to the Global Network of Podcasters dedicated to the pharmacy profession. Welcome to the Pharmacy Podcast Network.

Announcer 2 (00:24):

The pharmacy podcast network is excited to announce the release of a compelling three-part podcast series that covers the recent HLTH 2024 conference held in Las Vegas from October 22nd to the 24th. This premier event gathered thought leaders and innovators from across the healthcare landscape focused on addressing pressing challenges and exploring promising opportunities for the future of health.

Todd Eury (00:49):

Ashton Marba from IPC here at A LTH, what is this like to come to a conference where it opens our minds up to a lot more than just our normal environments that we’re so comfortable in Our home is all about pharmacy and then all of a sudden we come here and it’s like, holy cow, this is amazing.

Ashton Maraba (01:11):

Yeah, Todd, you’re absolutely right. It is an overwhelming experience, but we knew what we were getting into when we first paved and chartered our course to end up at health. We’re a digital healthcare company. We have a brand that’s continued to evolve that’s cutting edge and that’s really designed to future ready. Our pharmacy members, we set ourselves on a path a few years back, a couple of years ago, and we had our own vision when it came to what are we going to be in five years as a digital healthcare company in terms of translating that to value brand value back to our members and helping them grow. And our creative marketing team came up with Future Ready First came up with future proofing and Future Ready. Well, we want our members to know why we’re here first and foremost because we’re leaders. All of the IPC members know one thing. There’s a reason why we’re the only buying group member owned co-op buying group that’s actually here at this major digital healthcare conference. I am looking at the Kroger health booth right down from us. I’m looking at the CVS booth and I’m looking at the Walgreens booth

(02:24):

And then there’s I-P-C-I-P-C digital health. So we talk about being future ready and putting our members in a position to be future ready. Let’s talk about why we’re here. What is the real reason? Well, I’ll tell you why. Over the last couple of days we’ve had great conversations that will potentially be actionable on behalf of our building, our member value around iCare Plus and digital health. We have the ability now to tap into payer opportunities that are here that want to work with us, that have specifically told us they want to work with independent pharmacy.

(03:03):

We under our iCare Plus network strategy, they want to work with independent pharmacies that are part of a network. It’s easier for them, it’s more actionable and it cuts out a lot of red tape and bureaucracy in between. And for them it’s an easier sell as they take it up the ladder and get the proper signoffs. We’ve known that for a long time. That’s why the chains consistently get these preferred status agreements. It’s why they’re able to engage in these regional pilots or blossom other opportunities with payers even in scenarios where pharmacies, pharmacists are not considered providers, for example, or don’t have the full fledged provider status that we want. The conversations we’ve gotten into is look, we’ll give you a CPT code or whatever code we call it so long as we can track our member performance so long as we can track member adherence rates, and so long as you have a vehicle inside your pharmacies that’s maintaining and regulating and letting us know that that prescription is actually working for those members. That checks off all the boxes of what iCare Plus does, especially when you deal with that phase two remote patient monitoring. So that’s one of the number one reasons why we’re here. The other reason why we’re here is we are looking at health systems.

(04:33):

Had a conversation the other day just so trying to not take up too much more time here and I just promise I’d keep it light, but it’s important to share with the audience. We’re here because I had an opportunity the other day to speak to a few different health systems physicians groups. There are some of these physicians groups that have already had collaborations with local regional chains and I said, Hey, I’ve been in this industry for a while and I know a little bit about some of the collaborations that your physicians network, and again, I just don’t want to mention the names, but just follow me here. Audience, especially our independent pharmacy members because I’m going somewhere with this that I think you’re all going to, like I said, you’re physicians are engaged in these contracts with these local regional chains in their pharmacies and our independent pharmacies are right around the same corner. They’re already filling prescriptions for your physicians, but then when they come in to try to talk to the physicians about a potential collaborative practice agreement similar to what’s going on between them and the chain, they can’t get past the gatekeeper.

(05:55):

Here I am sitting in a session that’s based on value-based care opportunities for pharmacy and the speakers, the health system CEOs are under the impression that they’re already doing that with local, with the local pharmacy, but they’re not. They’re not. So we’re here to advocate, build the bridge with those health systems, sit right in front of them. I mean, we have to do the work too. We have to put our sales person’s hat on. We have to be able to advocate for our members and we have to be able to teach the health systems that we’re a network of pharmacies and our network of pharmacies are filling the prescriptions, the prescriptions that are treating chronic conditions. The patients aren’t always getting better and we’re providing the therapy up to a certain point. We can do so much more with the tools and resources that we have.

(06:54):

We’re already treating your patients now help us get paid so we can continue this and it helps you on the other front. So that’s where our advocacy comes in and we came in here on a mission. We came in here with a checklist of items that we wanted to accomplish as a group. We checked off every single box that we had hoped to check off and then some, not to mention, we are lucky to have the leverage that we have with the membership core that we do have and those that are already started to roll out iCare Plus because it gave us a platform over and above, having this wealthy distribution network of independent pharmacies, brick and mortar stores. A lot of people didn’t really understand. This environment doesn’t, if you say IPC, there’s a niche environment that knows who IPC is

(07:46):

Now they know that the iCare Plus is an actual clinic. iCare plus virtual healthcare centers are clinics inside these brick and mortars that has opened up a brand new conversation amongst the health systems, the payers. We have a lot of opportunity on the horizon. We are so lucky to have been fortunate to come here. There are new opportunities to plug in. We’re getting into, as we talked to before, we’re getting into weight loss. We’re looking at digital educational partners so we can ready our stores to be the best actors in the world when it comes to offering weight loss programs and filling Glide, for example, prescriptions. Our goal is to position our stores to be the best in class when it comes to offering weight loss program. What does that really mean? It means offering the education. It means monitoring the patient. It means making sure the patient has undergone the proper lab in order to study the metabolic responses to the GLIDE and then providing them that vehicle so they can get the additional prescription.

(08:53):

We follow a discipline process. We know how to make this work. When we come to these conferences, we come on a mission. We’re extremely organized in the sense that we operate under the same standards that our members expect us to operate. So we’re not just here in a booth showcasing the product. We’re here leveraging the wealth again of our members. We’re looking at strategic opportunities. We’re looking at the next five years, but realistically, we’re looking at how much more turnkey and innovative can we make the existing product that we’ve launched. I’ll tell you, we had a payer the other day that stopped by our booth and they were so excited to understand that we were doing telepharmacy light. They’d never heard about Telepharmacy light before and they won’t because we coined it. We said, look, do you understand why we’re doing telepharmacy light? You really understand why? Okay, so it’s an intervention vehicle.

(09:56):

Our pharmacies we’re able to reimburse our pharmacies because of our co-op, how our co-op is structured and how our co-op is formed because there are members, here’s why, because we took a crawl, walk, run philosophy. Historically, the competitors, or not potential, the digital health platforms that are here that are running remote patient monitoring platforms, they just went right to the doctor and said, here you go. Monitor your patients with completely forgetting the pharmacist in that equation. So the payer asked, the payer basically responded and said, no, I really don’t know. I said, because our pharmacies are able to begin to become subject matter experts and calling up the patient intervening through a digital health through a synchronous through a live call, what we do is we even give them a script to talk to the patient about their condition and it’s all digitally baked into our platform.

(10:55):

If they can maintain that five minute call, guess what’s going to happen? They’re going to be able to meet the requirements that are outlined by CMS for every CPT code, for remote patient monitoring, remote therapeutic management, and chronic care management, which are really the three key areas of how cases are established on a remote patient monitoring platform, which we call RPM. That’s where the payers, and that’s where the plans are moving towards. They want to understand that our members have the tools, they know how to use them and they’re going to optimize not just the CPT codes published by CMS, but they want to know it’s going to be worthwhile for them to issue a completely separate code where they directly pay the pharmacies whether they have provider status or not for meeting those milestones. And so when they see these things that we’re doing, when they see us break them down, I mean Todd, you even saw it. Some of these conversations, I get a little bit more operational because I skip past the industry buzzwords a lot for a reason.

(11:59):

I’ve been doing it for 20 years, 25 years now. It’s a long time to be entrenched in industry buzzwords. We action, we take action. We’re looking for partners that have a tangible, we can lead here and we can structure that NDA, we can get right into the weeds and we can develop the architecture of our partnership and start to really put our stores that our iCare plus stores ready to succeed. When they look at that and they hear that medium, they realize that it makes sense because not a lot of stores, number one, we never involved pharmacy, not at this scale.

(12:40):

We didn’t realize how impactful the pharmacist is. Well, yeah, we set up our pharmacist to do the enrollment for a blood pressure patient for hypertensive. We provide them the actual cuffs, they can enroll the patient and they can bill potentially against that CPT code tied to onboarding and education. Well, guess what? The physician owns the billing NPI unfortunately. So when the payers see what we’ve done and how we’ve broken it down into levels of that qual walk run strategy, it changes their thinking and they really look at us under a different scope and it’s been pretty awesome. And I’ll tell you the other thing. That’s awesome. We have a team here that’s continued to work within our ecosystem for about a year and a half or two years and evolving across the organization, hearing their hype, hearing their feedback. This is a different world that we’re in here at this conference. This is the future and this is the now true. And you heard that yourself, which is pretty

Todd Eury (13:48):

Amazing, right? I’ve watched Geo Talk with three major organizations that have nothing to do with physicians. They have everything to do with patient direct access to the program and they want to work with IPC and it blew me away. The wait one, which we’ll have a special episode on, I don’t want to give away any of our upcoming baked secrets.

Ashton Maraba (14:12):

Yeah, don’t,

Todd Eury (14:13):

Don’t reveal

Ashton Maraba (14:14):

Our secret sauce here, right?

Todd Eury (14:15):

Just amazing.

Ashton Maraba (14:15):

Amazing. Yeah. We are putting our members in a position to succeed. Now, we’ve said from first day Rome wasn’t built in a day. For those of you that are following our news at IPC Digital Health and the iCare Plus brand and obviously IPC as our parent and as we operate as a business unit IPC, you would have realized that we just hit a major milestone in 50 live virtual healthcare centers that gave us the leverage to talk to these plans and these health systems that you’re actually off the ground. There are a lot of great products here, but it’s all like, yeah, we’re almost there or we’re almost baked or we’re this or we can do this. But when someone says, we can do this, that’s kind of tough. You’re talking like three or four or five years.

(15:08):

We not only got one store off the ground, we got 50 and we have a whole other slew in our pipeline that are starting to roll out when these plans hear that. That’s why they want to work with iCare Plus and IPC Digital Health. We’ve made it happen. We crossed such a major threshold where we can only continue to strengthen the process and expand our footprint, which is exactly where we’re focused right now. The more footprint we have, the greater the footprint, the greater the opportunity that we’re going to be able to cover more get support and gain support from regional payers across the country. The regional payers right now are more focused on independent pharmacy under a network than they’ve ever been. I’ve never seen more companies on the health system side and on the payer side and agnostic as they are now and embracing independent pharmacy under a network. I’ve said that like three times now. Our network is iCare plus, and I really mean that wholeheartedly. When I say that, I emphasize that’s the network that we’re selling, the more brick and mortar member pharmacies we have in iCare plus we get you started on the phase one. We get you ready on phase two, the more you’re going to be able to expand the wealth of data, the wealth of living up to the potential of the services you’re offering now and promoting the profession in a way that the industry hasn’t seen in years,

(16:43):

Which is what we’re trying to do. We’re here telling a story and then we’re proving it with our proof points. We’re backing it by evidence. And I think that’s one thing you heard too. We are very fortunate to back it by evidence and not say, yeah, this is still in the pipeline. This is still in the pipeline. My head was spinning when I was hearing that as I evaluated strategic partners for our next three, five years. I mean, I am telling you, I felt like I had vertigo a couple times where I had to almost lean on some of my team members because I’m hearing these things and I’m like, okay, let’s move on to the next and let’s take a look at this strategic opportunity and so forth. This is wonderful.

Todd Eury (17:17):

Well, we’ve been excited to be a part of it. I can’t wait for the reactions to our listeners. Reach out to my iCare plus.com, that’s MY iCare plus my iCare plus.com, and I want to invite the listeners in that are doing things from a technological advancement to reach out to IPC and ask more questions about this platform and get more involved because as you said, health 2026, the representation of pharmacists will continue to be more. We saw a pediatric pharmacist group, we saw pharmacist walking around, we saw Dr. Re AKA here, pharmacist representations here, and we’re the only independent community pharmacy representation here. We need more representation.

Ashton Maraba (18:11):

And what does that tell you, Todd? When we’re the only independent pharmacy GPO represented here with a digital healthcare product that has actual clinics that are out there, it tells you that we have a genius group. We operate, we’re very lean, we’re very turnkey, and it’s as simple as the way we’ve been describing it at an idea share or you’ll see this weekend at NCPA whenever the listeners listen to this. So N CPA is literally, it’s back to back to this conference. We keep it simple, we keep it turnkey, we keep it universal. We want all members to be able to operate and to benefit, and we have a discipline. It takes the internal discipline to socialize the discipline behind the product, and then it takes the commercial discipline to make it work. So I know that’s kind of a lot there, but those of you that know that world of technology really well, you guys will get me those that don’t just enjoy the ride. We’re very excited to serve you. That’s what we’re here for. We wouldn’t be in this game if we weren’t innovators and we weren’t influencers. So I’ll leave you with that.

Todd Eury (19:27):

Thank you, Ashton. This has been wonderful coverage of the HLTH 2024. Melanie Marcus fellow podcaster with Surescripts. I’m a fan of your show and I thank you so much for participating on our coverage of HLTH.

Melanie Marcus (19:46):

Oh, I love that. Thank you for having us.

Todd Eury (19:48):

So this show brings so many organizations together with one common goal, which is the leverage of technology, innovation, of healthcare. I’m biased because I side with the pharmacy of everything, right? I should say I pharmacy everything and I want more pharmacists to participate in what’s happening here. The innovation of Jenna Quinn is pediatric focus. She’s here. It’s great to have her here. You are supporting just like this organization, you’re supporting so many facets of healthcare, but you have a sweet spot for pharmacy too.

Melanie Marcus (20:29):

Oh, absolutely. So

Todd Eury (20:30):

Talk to us about that relationship that you’ve developed.

Melanie Marcus (20:32):

Sure, sure. Well, obviously for Surescripts pharmacy is an incredibly important part of our network and has been since the beginning. Right now, what we’re looking at in pharmacy, a place that we’re spending a lot of time working with our customers across the network alliance, so not just pharmacy but others is around the opportunity that pharmacy has right now to play a much larger role in providing clinical care and helping to alleviate some of the incredible primary care shortage that we see. Some examples in data. Our network shows us that about 50% of counties in the United States have less than one primary care provider per 1500 patients population. That’s unbelievable. You can’t provide care that way. And in about two thirds of those counties with a shortage, we have pharmacy available. It’s not saying that pharmacy is going to provide all the primary care services, but some, right?

(21:42):

So there’s an opportunity right now. There’s a lot of things that needs to happen though before the technology can help make that and support that progress. We need pharmacy to be paid for those services and Surescripts has spent a lot of time, we spent some time this summer with AHIP and A PHA bringing together pharmacy and health plans to talk about that. We need policy. Policy is coming along to make sure that pharmacists can provide that care. And it’s almost a chicken and egg thing right now. We need the products to come along and make sure that pharmacy has access to the clinical information that they need to support patients. And amongst all of this, sure, there are many independent pharmacies who are in these rural areas with little access to primary care. So we need to make sure that they are getting paid for the care services that they’re providing.

(22:40):

We need to make sure they have access to clinical information. And there’s a lot happening there. Again, it’s a chicken and egg thing. So the industry is working now and Surescripts is very involved in helping make sure that pharmacy has a voice in the work happening in interoperability with the Sequoia project pharmacy interoperability work group. We’ve just finished this week some listening sessions with pharmacy and we hope to, we are targeting kicking off officially that work group in December of this year, and that’s an opportunity for pharmacy to come straight into the world where the prescribers all are working on interoperability and be part of that conversation and that work, lots of work to happen and it’s got to happen quickly because the US healthcare system needs pharmacy.

Todd Eury (23:33):

That’s right. There’s a similarity between Surescripts and pharmacy and more like pharmacists. And that is the public has no idea of all the services that behind the scenes pharmacists do. Our pharmacists listening right now have no idea of behind the scenes things that Surescripts has invested in and something that came out through our network was the QH.

Melanie Marcus (23:59):

Yes.

Todd Eury (24:00):

Development,

Melanie Marcus (24:01):

The Qualified Health Information

Todd Eury (24:02):

Network. So you’re doing this from an infrastructure perspective. Nobody knows about these things. So when we got that content, I’m like, pharmacists should understand what now is being positioned for the future.

Melanie Marcus (24:13):

Absolutely, absolutely. And this work group is actually all about making sure that pharmacy is participating in the work that will allow that qualified health information network to connect into pharmacy.

Todd Eury (24:26):

Does that include clinical decision support stuff or data that’s being pulled through? Well,

Melanie Marcus (24:32):

It is all about providing the clinical record for the patient to the pharmacist for the clinical care they’re providing.

Todd Eury (24:40):

Before you go, please share with the listeners your podcast that you’ve spent four years now really investing in as a way of getting more information out to our markets.

Melanie Marcus (24:49):

Oh, I love that. Yes. So there’s a better way smart talk about healthcare and technology and we’d love you to listen.

Todd Eury (24:57):

I want you to come back, dig deeper into different sectors. I love talking about specialty pharmacy. We’re always at NASP. You are as well. Your team participates a shout out to Cecilia, but I want you to think of where should pharmacists understand where they plug in and how Surescripts is helping them to plug in? And then let’s just build some more discussions. Great. Look forward to it. Thank you, Melanie. Thanks Todd. Hey, I caught up with Sean Noian with Empower Pharmacy. Welcome to the HLTH coverage.

Sean Noian (25:38):

Yeah, pleasure to be here. Thanks for having me.

Todd Eury (25:39):

Alright, why are you spending time at this mecca of infusion of digital health and healthcare? What’s Empower doing

Sean Noian (25:49):

Here? Yeah, so we’ve noticed that the market is shifting towards telemedicine to attain their functional medicine products. So everything from men’s health, women’s health, sexual wellness, hormone replacement, weight management, we see more and more providers using compounded medications because they can be one more efficacious than a commercial equivalent in many cases. And also that providers cost of competent medication is going down over time. And so providers are realizing if they want to keep a patient on these medications for the rest of our lives, that they need to make sure that we can afford it for the rest of our lives. And with the traditional pharmaceutical supply chain increasing costs by on average 11% a year, it correctly guarantees that a majority of that provider’s patient population will lose access at some point in their life. So they’re starting because they’re converting their patients to compounded medications. We want to make sure that we can support this new industry that is building and growing quite rapidly as many more patients are onboarding, converting, and wanting to stay.

Todd Eury (26:59):

So Empower is dialing into a specific patient’s need and then customizing based on compounding from what the physician kind of prescribed, is there something that’s titrated or changed along the way in the path of what you’re doing for patients? And then communicating that back to physicians.

Sean Noian (27:18):

So we serve about 35,000 different prescribers across the country and we get input from them on what they think is in the best interest of their patients. And so by working with some of the best providers out there, we then offer these formulations to our entire network. And so providers can learn what the best out there are utilizing. Many of these providers that are the best are academics, comedians. They want to be able to teach other providers and we can offer them that type of clinical expertise so they can go back into their practices and then improve the lives of their patients. We’re also investing a lot into our 5 0 3 B, and that’s really where we see the future of compounding, especially being that given that the United States PHARMACOPIA has updated their sterile standards, chapter 7 97 to limit the maximum batch size and the maximum beyond use state. While at the same time the FDA has given outsourcing facilities the ability to make unlimited batch sizes with practically unlimited beyond states, and then sell those medications to 5 0 3 A’s. And so we see the sterile market for 5 0 3 a’s shifting towards 5 0 3 BS as the FDA and state regulators want sterile medications, of course, much riskier to produce than non-sterile medications. They want those sourced from manufacturers that use good manufacturing practices. And the outsourcing facility industry just happens to be that

Todd Eury (28:49):

Being here at HLTH. What organizations have you met and or partnered with that can be part of this ecosystem to ensure that we’re getting patients the meds they need

Sean Noian (29:01):

At AHL TH, we notice that most of the companies here are offering digital services. Very few are offering actually telemedicine services. So it’s really getting aligning with providers that could help do software integrations, implementations, and of course AI is all the buzz right now. So learning what LLMs are being utilized and how we can incorporate that into our own platform so patients, providers, and pharmacies can get their medications easier, faster, and more compliant.

Todd Eury (29:36):

I’m also curious about delivery. Delivery. The last mile, we have a client of ours called RX Mile, for example, that really customizes delivery based on the substance, the temperature control, the distance, the time that the patient should be on their first dose and so forth. So talk to me about delivery.

Sean Noian (29:57):

We utilize the big three USPS, FedEx UPS to be able to ship all our packages, and some clients prefer one or the other. Some prefer we use their accounts, some prefer to use our pricing. Since we ship more packages than any other company in Houston, we get pretty good pricing on our packages going out through these carriers. And so it’s all about what’s best for the patient, what’s best for our clients, and so we’re agnostic.

Todd Eury (30:23):

That’s great. Alright, so in the move forward, we come out of HLTH, we’re preparing for 2025. The pharmacy deserts are probably going to get worse before it gets better. How is Empower positioning yourself for growth for 2025 in the future?

Sean Noian (30:40):

So we currently have the largest, most advanced compounding pharmacy in the country, and we just acquired the largest most advanced outsourcing facility in the nation in May of this past year. And what that allows us to do is give us hundreds of millions of vials of capacity to be able to serve the 5 0 3 market, as well as our practitioners, hospital systems and other office use administrators of these medications with access to scalable quality medication that the price goes down over time. Because as we onboard more providers and patients into our system, we can then further utilize economies of scale and drive down the cost per unit.

Todd Eury (31:25):

Sean Noian with Empower Pharmacy, thank you so much for participating in the HLTH 2024 ship. Oh, my pleasure. Thanks for having me. Hey, I am here with a special friend of mine that I met through my big sister, big brother organization out there, Finn Partners, who’s just an amazing PR firm that really digs down into healthcare and meaningfulness and communication. Shaheen. I am so proud to have you back. It was so much fun to interview David and you during our first two-part series on the Digital Therapeutic Talks Show, which actually was our first two episodes of that special show. So thanks for returning. Absolutely. Thanks for having us back. Absolutely. So I have been a big fan learning about Click Therapeutics. You’re out of Texas still? Is that where you guys are located?

Shaheen [Click Therapeutics] (32:19):

It’s right back out New York.

Todd Eury (32:20):

Oh, okay. And for some reason I thought your headquarters was in Texas, but I’m getting probably mixed up with Babson Diagnostics or something like that I’m sure. But we should make our way into Texas. There we go. I know

Shaheen [Click Therapeutics] (32:30):

We’ve done so in Boston, Miami and Raleigh now as well.

Todd Eury (32:33):

That’s incredible expansion, but that’s just it. It’s been a short two years since we met, I think at HL TH 2022. Tell me what’s accelerated and how Qlik Therapeutics is growing.

Shaheen [Click Therapeutics] (32:46):

Oh, we’ve evolved tremendously and it’s like where do I begin? I think the biggest thing that has evolved is last year the FDA issued a draft guidance. It’s called Peters, P-D-U-R-S prescription Drug use related software. And in a nutshell, it says if you develop a software as a medical device, which is what we do, prescription digital therapeutics, and you combine that with a drug and you show that there’s some added clinical benefit stemming from the software, that information can now go back into the drug label. And I am a neurologist. I happen to be a drug discovery and developer for a number of years. I would do label enhancing studies up the wazoo essentially. Now this is offering a new credence for our prescription digital therapeutics to be on par with medicine. So this is the future, and we’re calling this Qlik se Qlik Softer Enhanced

Todd Eury (33:39):

Drugs. I like it. I like it. So I’m a big fan of pharmacist. I’m bias of my favorite HCPs out there, and I’ve always thought in my imagination of using Qlik, digging down into behavioral health as an example. Imagine giving the power of the data that comes from using the app for a month, three months, six months, to start making little changes into what the app’s doing, how it’s interacting with the patient and guidance to potential other pharmacological interventions. Talk to us about that. Use behavioral health as an example. Oh

Shaheen [Click Therapeutics] (34:18):

Sure. Actually, our core has been in behavioral health. We started off with smoking cessation with nicotine, a way to basically quit the most addictive substance in the world, per persons involved in effective tobacco or cigarettes. Then we expanded into major depressive disorder. I’m happy to report that earlier this year we had our first FDA cleared prescription digital therapeutic congratulations. That’s in partnership with Otsuka Pharmaceuticals and they’re commercializing it. In fact, it’s called rejoin, R-E-J-O-Y-N. We’ve expanded our collaboration with Behringer Ingelheim in schizophrenia and not just the schizophrenia that we all know of the hallucinations and delusions, the element that’s a bit hidden, it’s called negative symptoms. Negative symptoms are things that people lost, like their motivation, their pleasure, their sociality, and there are no approved drug therapies for this condition. I’m glad to say that we’re active in a phase three clinical trial for schizophrenia bi loved it so much that we doubled up on the schizophrenia programs. We have two programs and the other one is in the undisclosed element of schizophrenia. And then last but not least, just a couple months ago, we closed on our migraine trials, our two phase three studies for the adjunctive treatment for prevention of migraine. And in a nutshell, we showed that we extracted over three monthly migraine days reductions after just 12 weeks of using a prescription digital therapeutic CT 1 32. That’s

Todd Eury (35:47):

Incredible. Where do you see training the pharmacist specifically on the treatment management through a digital therapeutic versus pharmacological? When is it time to bring in the pharmacies and pharmacists in to train on

Shaheen [Click Therapeutics] (36:05):

This? Oh, at all phases. I would even say a conception essentially, right? Because if we neglect that huge population, that pretty much is the front lines and interface with patients, understand obviously chemistry and biochemistry, drug drug interactions, and are now doing diagnostic testing, modulating drugs that used to be Coumadin. And now in response to opiate epidemic, even that is under the purview in some jurisdictions. I think it’s going to be essential in the conception design of prescription digital therapeutics in the validation recruitment of patients, representative patients in rural suburban communities that might not have access to tertiary care IV tower institutions. But then also when it’s marketed in its distribution channels, we are going to partner with digital pharmacies for distribution. That means people can, before leaving the doctor’s office, whether it’s a telemedicine visit or in-person visit, they could get dispensed through a digital pharmacy and access code to use one of our prescription digital therapeutics with or without a drug. And just before leaving the office virtually or in person, we would have confirmation that they’re engaged in therapy. We need the pharmacist front and center monitoring that data, collecting that data, seeing how it’s going to modulate with the other therapeutics that they’re managing for that patient as well.

Todd Eury (37:24):

Something special. Shaheen, if you’re not, you weren’t able to make HLTH. You’re listening to the post show. We are embedded in a booth of one of our clients, independent Pharmacy Cooperative, and they’ve come out with a platform called iCare Plus, which now does a test. They’re doing testing, home testing, the data’s coming back, they’re managing disease states, they’re asking the right questions, they’re doing the follow-up. And my imagination before we started recording was an API with Qlik Therapeutics in any of your conditions and any of your specialties, drawing that information back to Eyecare Plus and then sharing it again with the EHR or going in two directions, EHR and the pharmacy platform. But the future of pharmacy is not about the dispensing fee anymore. We’re going to move, it’s 2080 right now, 20% consultative and in medication therapy, 80% all about the dispensing fee. Goodness gracious. That’s going to flip. So when that, and it’s already starting to, so what do you see the future role of the pharmacist in place in the leveraging of digital health?

Shaheen [Click Therapeutics] (38:35):

Oh, I see it as an integral part. In fact, I believe as a field, as a discipline, the pharmacy community has been on the cutting edge of a lot of what we see in pharmaceutical sciences. In fact, it was pharmacy training programs that introduced the principles of drug discovery and drug development, A DM models and PKPD, and then did the business elements and market access and pricing and so on throughout pretty much undergraduate and graduate education created residencies and fellowships to make this a formalized sciences. I’m going to see digital therapeutics, prescription digital therapeutics, and the software enhanced drugs, all part of that curriculum. I think that’s essential. Then you’ll see actual practitioners, what you gave me as a perfect example, when you have a network of so many community pharmacists who are in the frontline with patients who are integral in that therapeutic alliance. It used to be the time where I, as a neurologist thought I write a script, all my patients are going to take it and they’re going to love it. They’re going to get the outcomes. I might not even need to monitor the outcomes. We know that’s not the case. And so the more individuals that are at this touch point that hold the accountability factor, the data integration factor to make more personalized medicines, right? Engaging delivery and utilization of medicines, the better it is. And pharmacy is integral to that.

Todd Eury (39:55):

Alright, we have to have you back for some deeper discussions. Come back, get David back on the show and let’s dig into a couple pharmacists who are dialed into some of those conditions that you’ve mentioned, migraines, mental health addiction. Let’s get some of these pharmacist experts to dial in and introduce them to these Click Therapeutics systems and prescriptions. This is amazing. Thank you for being here.

Shaheen [Click Therapeutics] (40:20):

Thank you so much. I’ll take that call to action myself too. Thank you.

Todd Eury (40:29):

If you don’t know Nick Atkins, you have to take time to find him. I don’t know where your social media is these days. Where do you hang out the most? Is it Twitter? Is it Instagram? Is it LinkedIn?

Nick Adkins (40:42):

Yeah. So it used to be a lot on Twitter, but as of late, migrated more over to LinkedIn. Follow me there at Nicholas N-I-C-H-O-L-A-S, Atkins a d as in delta, KINS. Look for a guy in a hat and a beard pitcher. And that’s with a propo fit. It would just be the hat and the beard. That’s me post everything about Pink Socks life to LinkedIn. And then follow us for fun. Pictures of happy smiley people and their pink socks. Follow us on Instagram Pink Socks Life Pink Socks Life, which is also our website.

Todd Eury (41:28):

So

Nick Adkins (41:29):

Hlt, lots of

Todd Eury (41:29):

Fun stuff on hlt H is so good to see you haven’t seen you in

Nick Adkins (41:34):

Been a minute. Yep.

Todd Eury (41:36):

Pharmacists need to follow you and just understand the whole mantra and mission that you’re on. The stickers and the socks that you give out. Probably don’t realize, I know they see me wearing Pink socks at the conferences once in a while because I met you years ago. But this has progressed to a massive movement that you’ve touched so many people’s lives in slowing people down and having them realize that healthcare isn’t just about the bits and the bites and the data and the prescribing and the outcomes there. There’s love involved, AKA health, CARE care, and that’s been something that you’ve been advocating for from the beginning. So

Nick Adkins (42:18):

Well, I appreciate that, but it’s not me, it’s you. It’s all of us. And so here we are, 300,000 pairs of pink socks almost 10 years later that have been gifted all around the world. And it is a global movement. This tribe is all around the world. We transcend all political ideologies and geopolitical boundaries and we celebrate each other. People that are doing great things in their organizations, their communities that are coming from the heart, people who show up with love and kindness every day and like you do, right, Todd, I’m grateful for you. And so we’re this tribe that sees each other, recognizes each other, is grateful for each other. And your socks, the pink socks on the front of the label and on the Pink Socks life van, the message from the label of Pink Socks on the front says, the world is full of good. When you believe it, you see it. Keep doing that. And that’s very, very true. And sometimes people say, well, Nick, the world’s not full of good.

(43:47):

There are some awful things in the world, but we cannot let that negate that there’s so much more good in the world and let’s encourage each other to focus on the good. And that can be just one person at a time. One small act of kindness at a time, one smile at a time, one pair of pink socks at a time. You and I both wear glasses to help us see what we focus on is what we see, how the lens that we view the world through. And if you want to just focus on the shed, that’s all you’re going to see. And unfortunately, a lot of social media, it’s just toxic with negative, negative, negative fear. Fair, fair.

(44:47):

That’s where when you put your glasses on and you look through that lens and that’s what you focus on, that’s what you’re going to see. And so Pink Socks is an opportunity to focus on a community that isn’t toxic, A community that is doing good things in the world. And so I’m grateful for how you show up in the world and everyone else. And I’m encouraged by that every day. And I don’t let myself get too depressed or freaked out about some of the awful things that are happening in the world because when I see people in Pink Socks love more gear washed over with gratitude of what we’ve done, what you’ve done, what we’ve collectively have built together, and what is a grassroots movement.

Todd Eury (45:55):

So thank you. Well, thank you. And there’s a lot of meaning to it. And I believe in what you stand for. That’s why I wear them as often as I can and try to let our pharmacists know who are under so much pressure and so much negativity, like you said, with closing of 8,000 stores in three years. And pharmacists are pulling their hair out and feeling that they’re not looked at as providers. And I’m constantly on our shows being a glass half full guy instead of a glass half empty guy. And that’s the energy that you pull in and that you spread. And then when it hits people like Grace and Cullen and Gil Bash and it, it’s just a domino effect. And we all pick up the mission ourselves and we push it. And then when I see people doing it that it’s at the level that you’ve brought the attention, then I don’t feel embarrassed by it because I’m like, well, these other cool people are doing it, so I’m going to do it. And the space of pharmacy hasn’t gotten as much of that. So it’s just one place that I can bring to my clients and to our hosts and to our listeners, this advocacy of, like you said, of love and of caring for each other. Yeah.

Nick Adkins (47:18):

Todd, I’d like to give a shout out to one of our sponsors that partners with Pink Socks Life. We’re a 5 0 1 3 nonprofit. So we rely on philanthropy, donors, grant money, corporate friends to help us with our mission. And there’s a pharmacy company that most people haven’t heard of. It’s called Bio Plus Specialty Pharmacy. I have heard, right? You have. Of course you have. Right? But most people haven’t. They were at NASP with me actually. Okay, great. And so their niche is oncology patients. And there’s know a lot of times the treatment is at the end of one. And so they’re a compounding pharmacy making unique medications for each patient. And I guess we’ve been working together with them, I think for four years now. And if you follow me on LinkedIn, Nicholas Atkins, I reposted a article that got published today from Pharmacy Affairs, maybe somebody that does a really good job of explaining pink socks in the pharmacy world.

(48:49):

And when I say most people haven’t heard of that company, because unless you’re fighting cancer and going through that battle, you don’t need them. Unfortunately. So many of us get that phone call to say it’s cancer. And so what BioPlus does is when they send out the patient’s first box of meds, ship it to the house, they include a pair of pink socks in each box. Somebody that’s going through probably the worst time of their life, they feel alone, isolated, scared, and then they open this box and there’s a pair of pink socks and with a message from them. Know what I mean? And it’s the design element of the socks has the mustache in the puzzle piece. And that represents the power of connection, connection puzzle piece that, Hey, you’re not alone. We’re all in this together. And so this sense of community, even in the oncology world, is amplified and promoted by what BioPlus is doing with their customer care kits. They go out to each new patient, and I’m super grateful to be partnered with them and to help support the work they’re doing. I’m grateful for the work, their support to help us spread our message and mission. There’s a lot of opportunity for us to partner with other companies that are doing similar work.

(50:37):

And we really, the nice thing about the Pink Sox tribes, since it’s built on this ethos of gifting. So somebody once upon a time gave you your pink socks and you’ve gifted pink socks to people through the years, is those pink socks are a token, a reminder, an emblem of connection. Once upon a time, someone gave me these. So it’s not schwa, it’s not an award, it’s not a reward. It’s a reminder that someone cared enough to say, Hey, I see you. It’s good to see you. I’ve got something I want to give you. Because they saw your pink socks, right? They said, oh, those are cool. Those are fun. That’s funky. And you’re like, Hey, I got something for you. And you’re like, what? Those are for me. I mean, it’s magic. Every time you gift those socks, it creates a connection, a bond, a relationship bond. And there’s a really cool book called Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimer. She’s a PhD at SUNY in New York, and she teaches about plant medicine. She’s a Native American.

(52:00):

But one of the quotes from the book, the original people here right before we came, was an economy of gifting. Not bartering, but gifting. And this line that I’m about to quote, I believe is one of the most beautifully written lines on the act of gifting. And she says, the cardinal difference between commodity exchange and gifting is that gifting creates a relationship line. A and so it does, right? It does. There is no commodity on Pink Socks. It’s an act of gifting, just like there’s no one cause there’s no one sponsor, there’s no one brand. It’s a collective of all of us. And that act of gifting does create a relationship, a memory.

(53:06):

And I believe that’s what’s made Pink Socks grow through the years, is that we have not, and by purpose with intention, once it became a thing that first year, 2015, my intention, we shepherded it so that no, no, no. What does it mean to you? I mean, people still ask me even now, almost 10 years later, well, Nick, what does it mean? I don’t know. What does it mean to you? So people see the side of the van, I stop and put some diesel in there, read the message, see the big love more. What does that mean? I go, what does it mean to you? And they said, well, that we need to be kinder to each other. That’s exactly what it means. Whatever it means to you is what it means. It it’s not our job or our mission to tell you what Pink Socks is about. It will come to you. And whatever it means to you is exactly what it means. That’s cool. Yeah. So movement’s a paradox. It it’s a movement that’s made up of multiple missions one, and we’re here celebrating you and your mission and your listener’s mission. We’re all in this together. We can all be celebrated to be doing good things in the world.

Todd Eury (54:39):

I agree. I always say together and then I spell it with an RX at the end together. Perfect. Perfect. Perfect. Nick Atkins, thank you for sharing yourself and your time with us here at hlt h. I want listeners to go to Google right now and look up hashtag pink socks. I dare you to go to the image section when you do that search and watch what blows up out of that

Nick Adkins (55:06):

Search. Always one word, always plural. Hashtag Pink Socks, plural. Pink Socks Life is the website. Everything that you need to know is on there. And yeah, there’s a lot of happy, smiley people and pink socks around the world.

Todd Eury (55:25):

That’s very true. I’ve never seen someone frowning wearing pink socks. Thank you, Nick.