Xcenda and UMass Chan Medical School’s Commonwealth Medicine collaborate to enhance healthcare decision makers’ view of pharmaceutical pipeline

Commonwealth Medicine is now ForHealth Consulting at UMass Chan Medical School. More information available here. This content has not been updated with the new name.

Shrewsbury, Mass. – The Clinical Pharmacy Services team at Commonwealth Medicine, the healthcare consulting and operations division of the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School, is pleased to announce a collaboration with the strategic global consultancy Xcenda. The partnership aims to provide healthcare decision makers with pertinent information about pharmaceutical products—including those in the pipeline—to help inform formulary planning. Xcenda, and Commonwealth Medicine which has over 10 years of experience monitoring the pharmaceutical pipeline, will develop Product Snapshots available via Xcenda’s FormularyDecisions®, a secure online platform that facilitates credible information exchange between manufacturers and healthcare decision makers.

The Product Snapshots offer important background information, clinical trial summaries, and formulary management considerations for each product. They serve as a valuable, high-quality tool for FormularyDecisions® users seeking insights into promising medications in late stages of the pharmaceutical pipeline and FDA-approved medications being investigated for new indications. FormularyDecisions—which was acquired by Xcenda, a part of AmerisourceBergen, in 2019—provides its community of 2,500 healthcare decision makers with access to clinical evidence and health economic information on thousands of pharmaceutical products.

Commonwealth Medicine’s expertise in researching, writing, and presenting drug intelligence, coupled with the reach of FormularyDecisions® and the platform’s sharing of credible product information, will help ensure that, ultimately, patients receive safe and effective care consistent with national guidelines and evidence-based medicine.

“This collaboration will not only offer the FormularyDecisions® community with comprehensive and current Product Snapshots, they will also be able to access updates to promising pipeline agents, such as new clinically relevant data impacting drug management and regulatory status changes,” said Commonwealth Medicine’s Clinical Consultant Pharmacist Team Lead Pavel Lavitas, PharmD, BCPS.

“With more innovative products entering the pharmaceutical pipeline, our goal is to provide healthcare decision makers with credible information at all stages of the product lifecycle, ultimately helping to enhance the formulary decision-making process,” said Melissa McCart, PharmD, MS, Xcenda’s senior director of FormularyDecisions®. “As the pharmaceutical landscape continues to evolve, we’re constantly looking to add new tools and capabilities that provide our community with more in-depth information. Commonwealth Medicine’s vast experience in drug intelligence, clinical expertise and their adeptness at identifying distinguishing characteristics of therapeutic agents will further strengthen our offering and provide our users with more value.”

About Clinical Pharmacy Services at Commonwealth Medicine

Clinical Pharmacy Services delivers cost-containment and disease management programs that promote positive clinical outcomes for patients and has 20 years of experience working with Medicaid programs, health plans, and pharmacy benefit managers. The team at Clinical Pharmacy Services monitors the pharmaceutical pipeline, develops drug monographs and prior authorization (PA) clinical criteria, conducts call center PA reviews, supports Pharmacy and Therapeutic Committees, manages Drug Utilization Review programs, supports value-based arrangements, and implements tailored medication management programs.

Commonwealth Medicine is the healthcare consulting and operations division of the University of Massachusetts Chan Medical School. It draws on the academic knowledge and public health service expertise of Massachusetts’ only public medical school to provide comprehensive, innovative healthcare and policy solutions. Commonwealth Medicine is guided by a mission to empower its partners—in-state and out-of-state agencies and healthcare organizations—to transform lives by optimizing the effectiveness of healthcare initiatives that assist the underserved in their communities.

UMass Chan Medical School, the Commonwealth’s first and only public academic health sciences center, has a mission to advance the health and wellness of our diverse communities throughout Massachusetts and across the world by leading and innovating in education, research, healthcare delivery, and public service. Learn more about UMass Chan Medical School.

About Xcenda
Xcenda is a strategic consulting firm with more than 20 years of experience applying real-world expertise in health economics and outcomes research, reimbursement, health policy, market research, and market access strategy. Learn more about Xcenda.