Jim Schwartz, RPh, president of the National Community Oncology Dispensing Association and executive director of pharmacy operations for Texas Oncology, discusses how his practice will handle using CAR T-cell therapies to treat patients.
Jim Schwartz, RPh, president of the National Community Oncology Dispensing Association and executive director of pharmacy operations for Texas Oncology, discusses how his practice will handle using CAR T-cell therapies to treat patients.
Transcript
Are you currently using CAR T therapies at your practice?
CAR T therapy: we are going to be doing CAR T therapy. Baylor Medical Center in Dallas, along with our Texas Oncology physicians, who will be the physicians doing it, are going to do both the Novartis CAR T and [Kite] Pharmaceuticals’ CAR T. So, we’ve had a lot of discussions with them, a lot of meetings. It’ll probably be done in the hospital, inpatient. It’s very expensive, and the people in my practice said, “We’re happy to have Baylor put up the money,” but our doctors will be treating [patients with CAR T therapies].
Are you involved in how to prepare for handling the toxicities of CAR T therapies?
Not intimately, but I’ve got an excellent pharmacist in the bone marrow transplant unit. I went and met with him and he told me more about CAR T than I got on any of the calls. He will be involved in managing—he’s on the outpatient side, but he also helps them on the inpatient side.
So, one of our Texas Oncology pharmacists is going to be involved in that to help monitor the inpatient, because there won’t be a lot of patients, but there will patients that need to be monitored very carefully. That’s why they want to stay in the hospital—it may not happen right away, it may take 2 or 3 days, and he’s part of the group that’s making the care plans. You know, “Once it’s done, here’s what we’re going to watch.”
ATS 2024: Bridging the Past, Present, and Future of Respiratory Care
May 16th 2024The application of artificial intelligence in medicine is anticipated as a highlight of ATS 2024, with sessions exploring its applications in research, radiological interpretation, and pediatric pulmonology.
Read More
Examining Low-Value Cancer Care Trends Amidst the COVID-19 Pandemic
April 25th 2024On this episode of Managed Care Cast, we're talking with the authors of a study published in the April 2024 issue of The American Journal of Managed Care® about their findings on the rates of low-value cancer care services throughout the COVID-19 pandemic.
Listen
Oncology Onward: A Conversation With Penn Medicine's Dr Justin Bekelman
December 19th 2023Justin Bekelman, MD, director of the Penn Center for Cancer Care Innovation, sat with our hosts Emeline Aviki, MD, MBA, and Stephen Schleicher, MD, MBA, for our final episode of 2023 to discuss the importance of collaboration between academic medicine and community oncology and testing innovative cancer care delivery in these settings.
Listen
Posters Characterize DMD Caregiver Experiences, Impact of Gene Therapy on Caregiving Demands
May 10th 2024Posters presented at the ISPOR—The Professional Society for Health Economics and Outcomes Research meeting explored Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) caregiver experiences and gene therapy’s impact on work opportunities for caregivers.
Read More