Effective patient-first approach in rare disease relies on true sales—not channel stocking

To avoid this, it’s critical to take a patient-first approach to better identify the patients who need the drug and avoid risking a level of overstock that depletes earnings. Channel stocking not only makes it more challenging to determine how to report revenues, but also carries the chance that the pharmacy may ask for a credit or discount for storage. Depending on payer reimbursement, this scenario could leave manufacturers upside down on the product.

Stocking the channel puts distance between the drugmaker and patients, leading to lost data and a lost opportunity to improve care and support for specialty patients and their families. It’s also important to understand that, for rare disease patients, availability is not the biggest challenge because month-after-month the growth of the population is too small to deplete stock.