Welcome to the Society
Message from the President
To that end, The Pharmacy & Therapeutics Society continues to recruit new members from across all practice settings. We have restructured our Board of Trustees, updated our constitution and bylaws and established a committee structure that will meet your needs as a P&T committee leader or participant, or as someone from a corporate or business setting concerned with the delivery of high-quality, outcomes-oriented pharmaceutical care.
New approaches to pharmaceutical care, biologics and “biosimilars”, vaccines, healthcare technology, specialty pharmacy and healthcare procedures are on the doorstep. Some familiar drug products will soon be losing patent protection. New generic forms can be expected to change the formulary landscape in some major drug categories. With all these changes come increasing demands from employers and government for evidence of quality healthcare and improved health outcomes commensurate with continued growth in healthcare spending. Studies of “comparative effectiveness” and the impact of biomarkers on the personalization of health care are ahead of us. The Society can be expected to play a major role in this challenging environment, aiding in the improvement of evidence based benefit design, drug formulary development and implementation across all healthcare practice settings.
The Society’s 2008 annual conference held on November 6-7 in Washington, DC addressed these areas in detail and has led the Board of Trustees to frame an issues agenda for 2009. At the conference and in subsequent discussion, faculty, attendees and the Board of Trustees:
- Examined the growing importance of evidence in decision-making in order to improve clinical outcomes, economic value, and conserve resources wherever possible
- Identified the gap areas in gathering evidence and improving the process by which evidence is used in formulary development and implementation in hospitals, health plans, PBMs, physician practices and employer settings
- Identified the special challenges and strategies needed to address them in managing high cost oral and injectable drugs, and conducted workshops in the individual areas of implementing oncology guidelines, managing new vaccines and the establishing the electronic medical record/personal health record
- Examined concepts from general managerial science and how they could apply to P & T committee deliberations; highlighted the challenges facing P&T committees in 2009, and identified the role P&T committees should play as agents of change in a challenging clinical and economic environment
In order to accomplish our overall objectives, we need the active involvement and support of more than just the dedicated group of individuals who have been working with us in the past. Our annual conference faculty, drawn from leadership positions in diverse healthcare settings has set a tone of excellence in substance and leadership. I thank them for their ongoing efforts to support the work of the Society. But we do need more of you to step forward and identify issues of importance, help populate the committees and task forces that are structured to address these issues, and help us in developing the recommendations and reports that can be disseminated through our journal, on our website, and in our annual conference November 5-6, 2009 in Washington, DC.
We have also received support from a number of pharmaceutical companies and other healthcare organizations, both as sponsors of our 2008 annual conference and as corporate members for 2008-2009. Again, I wish to thank these forward-thinking supporters of the Society and encourage you all to consider the role that the Society plays in elevating issues of concern to you and your organizations to a national stage that will facilitate their resolution. Corporate memberships are available in varying amounts and with varying direct and indirect benefits. I urge you to consider such memberships where appropriate.
I am also asking each one of you who visit our website or read The American Journal of Pharmacy Benefits (AJPB), the official publication of The Pharmacy & Therapeutics Society, to consider applying for a $100 individual membership in the Society. Individual membership conveys a number of benefits, including a complimentary, one-year subscription to AJPB a discount on registration fees for our annual conference and other paid events and the opportunity to participate on the committees of the Society and access our board members both formally and informally.
As part of member exchange, we are all committed to helping our colleagues within the Society address the individual and organizational implications and ramifications of the types of issues we are addressing nationally as a Society. But most importantly, the Society is advancing state-of-the-art policies and processes to establish and manage P&T committees, improve review and evaluation of drugs and technologies, and help you perfect your own knowledge and expertise. I can think of no better way for you to enrich the policy deliberations and the internal discussions of your organizations than with input gained from your interaction with Society colleagues. The $100 membership fee carries with it significantly more in direct monetary benefits than the charge itself. The intangible benefits deriving from your involvement in addressing critical healthcare issues and in being able to access your colleagues on the Society will be of inestimable value both personally and professionally.
I urge you to complete and return the membership application. I also urge you to consider a corporate membership as appropriate. If you have any questions, please feel free to contact the Society at 860.657.3207 or via email at
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I look forward to all of you joining us in this most important endeavor.