According to a recent issue of Workcompwire, “specialty medications”, drugs that may require special handling, distribution, administration and patient management, are beginning to have a significant impact on workers compensation. With specialty conditions such as hepatitis C, rheumatoid arthritis, and multiple sclerosis occurring through direct or indirect contact by healthcare or emergency workers, specialty medications, at costs that can exceed $1,000 per day, may become standard protocol.
Currently there are more than 5,000 new medications in the drug pipeline globally, and 70 percent of those are potential first-in-class medicines – those that use a different mechanism of action from any other already approved medicine. Many of these first-in-class medicines will be considered specialty medications once they complete phase III approval by the FDA. For several years, the pipeline for specialty medications has been far more robust than that for non-specialty medications.
