AmerisourceBergen makes push to curb opioid diversion, misuse
Healthcare distributor AmerisourceBergen has reaffirmed its commitment to ongoing supply chain safeguards and announced plans to build partnerships in an effort fight opioid abuse and diversion.
The Valley Forge, Pa.-based company said that since 2007, it has provided the Drug Enforcement Administration with daily reports of all opioid-based medication orders that include quantity, type and receiving pharmacy, which it says has led to tens of thousands of stopped shipments of suspicious orders. It said it would continue to guard its supply chain by using data and analytics to analuze orders from customers against their peer groups to identify suspicious behavior. Additionally, the company said it was continuing to invest in its Diversion Control Team, which includes pharmacists, pharmacy technicians and former law enforcement professionals. The ream visits customer sites, conducts surveillance and reviews customer products, AmerisourceBergen said.
The company also noted that it remains commited to taking no action to market or creae demand for opioids, and that it has not provided incentive-based compensation or bonuses around the sale of opioids, nor does it have plans to.
“The commitments and initiatives announced today reflect our belief that all companies in healthcare should be constantly looking at ways to innovate, collaborate and enhance existing practices in order to best combat the opioid issue,” AmerisourceBergen president, chairman and CEO Steve Collis said. “Alongside our recent legislative recommendations aimed at supporting regulator and industry data transparency, these reflect our dedication to doing our part to combat diversion and misuse of opioid products.”
AmerisourceBergen said that it would work to find partnerships that will offer opioid abuse solutions. This is in addition to the company’s collaboration with Walgreens to bring safe medication disposal units to 900 Walgreens stores near military bases and other areas that have borne the brunt of the opioid epidemic.
The new initiatives follow the company’s November call for new guidelines surrounding data transparency between the DEA, drug distributors and pharmacies.
“Given the current silos within the supply chain, presently only DEA has access to comprehensive, critically needed data on the total quantities of opioids sold to pharmacies across the United States,” Collis said. “While distributors are individually required to report controlled substance data to DEA, we currently are not privy to if our peers in the industry are supplying opioid-based medicines to the same pharmacies we are. AmerisourceBergen is committed to working collaboratively to gain access to this data so that all distributors would be better able to detect suspicious orders, and ultimately help stop bad actors in their tracks.”
AmerisourceBergen’s suggestions included allowing distributors access to de-identified DEA data to help evaluate the context of a pharmacy’s opioid order, establishing additional protocols around opioid ordering and using DEA registrant fees to fund enhanced data capabilities, among others.