California P&T-ing

AMCP Chapter's Winning Pharmacy & Therapeutics Team Sets Sights on National Competition in San Diego

With its Jan. 18 win in the UHCOP Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy Chapter Pharmacy & Therapeutics Competition, a team of five Pharm.D. students already hard at work on its entry submission to the national competition during the AMCP 2019 Managed Care & Specialty Pharmacy Meeting March 25-28 in San Diego.

The team of Angie Asadi, Kim Dinh, Duc Huynh, Jennifer Nguyen and Grace Pham were announced as the local winner at the AMCP chapter's Roundtable Event in collaboration with the college's chapter of the Industry Pharmacists Organization. The Roundtable Event brings together pharmacy students and pharmacists working in the fields of managed care and the pharmaceutical industry.

The second-place finalist team comprised Truong Do, Alyza King, Thong Le, Amilda Medina and Chijioke Onyekwelu, and the third-place team was Amanda Gee, Harshil Patel, Jenny Quach, Dwight Sonnier and Kat Tran.

Sponsored by the AMCP Foundation, the Pharmacy & Therapeutics Competition is designed to introduce students to the work that goes into formulary management, a system by which health plans, hospitals, government agences and other organizations develop, manage, update and administer a list of medications and related products used by the organization. According to the AMCP Foundation, "The overall goal is to develop a list of the safest, most effective medications that will produce the desired goals of therapy at the most reasonable cost to the health care system."

As medication experts, pharmacists play a key role on, or on behalf of, P&T Committees. They "must understand how to evaluate the best available scientific, clinical, and economic evidence on medication use" and "determine the impact of medication use on patient population outcomes, conduct cost/benefit analyses, and relate drug therapy choices to current practice guidelines," according to the AMCP Foundation website.

The UHCOP team will submit its proposal to the national judging panel, which will invite eight chapters to advance from the semi-finals to the finals and present their proposals live at the AMCP national meeting. The local and national competition is based on a drug called TYMLOS® (abaloparatide) injection, a medication made by Radius Health Inc. that is prescribed for postmenopausal women with osteoporosis at high risk for fracture or patients who don't respond to or can't tolerate other osteoporosis therapies.