Members of our team had the opportunity to present a new poster abstract, "Utilization of a Health-System Specialty Pharmacy to Optimize Management of HCV-Positive Kidney Transplant Recipients", at the NASP 2025 Annual Meeting & Expo.

Authors:

Sandra Poon, PharmD; Casey Fitzpatrick, PharmD; Ana Lopez Medina, PharmD, PhD; Andrew Wash, PharmD, PhD; Jessica Mourani, PharmD

Background:

• Over 100,000 patients in the U.S. are awaiting a kidney transplant, and the average wait time is approximately 3 to 5 years.¹
• Historically, individuals living with hepatitis C virus (HCV) have been underutilized as donors due to concerns related to disease transmission.²
• Advances in HCV treatment have led many centers to consider these individuals as donors to help reduce transplant wait times.²
• Health-system specialty pharmacy (HSSP) teams can play an important role in the kidney transplant process to improve medication access by addressing cost barriers for direct-acting antivirals (DAAs) and minimizing delays in therapy initiation.

Objectives:

• To describe the development of an HSSP program for the management of kidney transplant recipients receiving a kidney allograft from a donor with a positive HCV nucleic acid test (HCV-NAT+).
  

Read about the team's findings by downloading the outcomes study below.

¹Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network (OPTN) and Scientific Registry of Transplant 
Recipients (SRTR) OPTN/SRTR 2013 annual data report. Rockville, MD: Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration. Am J Transplant. 2015 Jan;15(S2):4– 15.

²Patnaik R, Tsai E. Hepatitis C virus treatment and solid organ transplantation. Gastroenterol 
Hepatol (NY}. 2022;18(2):85-94. PMID: 35505819