Narcolepsy: rare pathology with serious impacts for sociability
On the occasion of the World Rare Disease Day, PharmaPrimea leading company in drug delivery and in the development and management of Patient Support Programs (PSP)turns the spotlight on the community’s needs people suffering from narcolepsy, a rare neurological disorder characterized by excessive daytime sleepiness which compromises the ability to carry out normal daily activities, making it particularly burdensome to go to hospitals to collect drugs.
To support people suffering from narcolepsy with cataplexy being treated withhe drug sodium oxybate from UCB Pharma, PharmaPrime has created a PSP that ensures the collection of the drug at the hospital pharmacy and home delivery of the patient, wherever they are in Italy, together with a series of services that improve adherence to chronic therapy.
Born from an idea of the biopharmaceutical company UCB Pharma, the “UCB @ casa” Project was launched by PharmaPrime in 2020, during the first lockdown, to allow patients and caregivers to avoid the discomfort of traveling and thus promote continuity of care. But the objectives of the Project go far beyond the pandemic phase: the service, also available for the drug certolizumab pegol from the same Belgian multinational companyindicated for the treatment of various chronic autoimmune dermatological and rheumatological diseases, in fact, it allows to receive hospital-dispensed medicines directly at home, a requirement that for many people suffering from serious chronic diseases will not end with the end of the health emergency.
The service is free and easy for the patient: just register the treatment plan and a PharmaPrime operator will collect the medicine at the reference facility. In addition to the home delivery of the hospital drug, “UCB @ casa” offers the ‘Automatic Refill’ service which reminds the patient when the drug is about to run out and automatically replenishes the new package, to promote greater adherence to therapy, improve symptom management and quality of life.
“On the Day dedicated to rare diseases, we are proud to express our closeness to the community of people affected by narcolepsy, which we support every day with our services to make access and adherence to treatment ever easier”, says Luca Buscioni , CEO of PharmaPrime. “For patients who are frail or who live with disabling diseases such as narcolepsy, the withdrawal of drugs from hospital pharmacies or ASLs can be very costly. The importance of the home delivery service of hospital-dispensed medicines emerged strongly during the pandemic but goes well beyond the emergency because it is necessary to do everything possible to guarantee patients the availability of therapy and its correct intake every day.. This is our daily commitment to improve people’s health and quality of life and we are working to ensure that more and more patients with chronic diseases can benefit from programs that simplify the procurement of medicines and improve adherence to therapy “.
“The collaboration with PharmaPrime expresses the common commitment to improve people’s lives through services focused on the real needs of those who experience the daily difficulties associated with the management of a serious chronic disease”, says Federico Chinni, CEO of UCB. “This Project, born in the most dramatic period of the pandemic, represented an opportunity for us to experiment with new ways of supporting people suffering from serious diseases, in perfect coherence with our mission”.
About PharmaPrime
PharmaPrime is an Italian company, born from an entrepreneurial idea of a group of health professionals, with the aim of improving the lives of people and their families, supporting them on a daily basis in their care path. PharmaPrime is a leader in the design and management of innovative projects and services to support chronic patients and their families (Patient Support Program – PSP), and has developed the first on-demand pharmacy platform in Europe, which allows you to order and receive at home medicines, parapharmaceuticals and dermocosmetic products. Thanks to the integration of the platform with the management systems of partner pharmacies, PharmaPrime allows to know in real time the availability of the products and to deliver them within a few minutes. PharmaPrime proposes itself as a strategic partner for pharmaceutical companies, with which it develops digital solutions that ensure the availability of drugs and support the patient in adhering to therapies.