By Fran Gregory, VP of emerging therapies
For patients facing serious illnesses, navigating the complex path to advanced therapies can add an unnecessary burden to an already difficult journey.
Consider Sarah, a working mother whose lymphoma returned after multiple rounds of treatment. Her care team recommended CAR T-cell therapy, a treatment with the potential for lasting remission. The nearest authorized treatment center was several hours away from home.
Sarah and her caregiver temporarily relocated, navigating the stress of arranging time away from work, coordinating transportation and securing temporary housing. Following her treatment, she remained near the hospital for intensive monitoring, while ongoing care was coordinated between her local oncologist and the specialized treatment center. Fortunately, the therapy worked. But the experience was physically, emotionally and logistically demanding.
For many patients like Sarah, this remains the reality of advanced therapies. These innovative treatments, including cell and gene therapies, are designed to target disease in entirely new ways and hold tremendous promise for patients facing cancer, autoimmune disorders and rare diseases. Yet despite their potential, access to many of these therapies remains concentrated in specialized treatment centers.
The scientific progress has been extraordinary. As more advanced therapies demonstrate meaningful potential and reach the market, a growing challenge is ensuring that eligible patients can access them safely and efficiently.
Cardinal Health’s 2026 Advanced Therapies Report found growing provider support for expanding advanced therapy administration into outpatient and community settings. The research also underscored the need for strong partnerships and careful clinical, operational and economic planning.
A connected model for expanding access
As advanced therapies transition from scientific breakthroughs to commercial realities, manufacturers face a new challenge: ensuring patients can access these treatments safely, efficiently and across a broader range of care settings. These therapies often require specialized storage and handling, complex coordination among stakeholders and ongoing clinical support.
Addressing those challenges requires more than a single service or solution. It requires a connected approach that brings together commercialization, distribution, provider support and patient care.
At Cardinal Health, we have spent decades helping manufacturers navigate the commercialization journey. Our third-party logistics (3PL) business supports warehousing, distribution, payment solutions, data visibility and regulatory needs, while our specialty distribution network helps connect manufacturers with providers across the country. Together, these capabilities create a strong foundation for bringing complex therapies to market and supporting access expansion.
Building on that foundation, we recently opened our Innovative Care Pharmacy, a specialty pharmacy designed specifically to support the unique demands of cell and gene therapies, rare diseases and other highly specialized treatments. The pharmacy was purpose-built to meet the rigorous requirements of these therapies while helping providers and manufacturers navigate their complexity.
Innovative Care Pharmacy offers a differentiated model that includes patient onboarding, payer access support, clinical services, fulfillment and care coordination tailored to each therapy. It also provides channel optionality, clinical support and financial solutions that help providers procure and administer complex therapies more effectively. If customers choose to leverage our existing 3PL and specialty distribution infrastructure, the pharmacy creates a more connected experience across the treatment journey.
The pharmacy also captures clinical, patient-reported and provider-reported data that can help manufacturers better understand treatment experiences, outcomes and access challenges. These insights can support future care delivery, evidence generation and commercialization strategies while helping identify opportunities to improve the patient experience. Innovative Care Pharmacy is one part of a broader ecosystem needed to support responsible expansion into additional care settings. Manufacturers, payers, health systems, community providers and specialty pharmacies each have a role in helping eligible patients navigate treatment safely.
For me, the significance of Innovative Care Pharmacy extends beyond the launch of a new specialty pharmacy. It represents an important step toward addressing one of the industry's most pressing challenges: making advanced therapies more accessible to the patients who need them. This is especially important as more therapies enter the market and as healthcare providers seek new ways to deliver care closer to patients' communities.
Advancing access, together
Now imagine a different experience for Sarah.
Sarah's community physician is supported by a connected network that helps coordinate treatment, navigate payer requirements and streamline access to care. Through Innovative Care Pharmacy and our broader ecosystem, providers have access to the clinical, operational and financial support needed to help determine the most appropriate treatment path and navigate the complexities of access. Care remains coordinated across stakeholders, helping reduce unnecessary barriers while supporting clinically sound and financially feasible care.
The promise of advanced therapies is not limited to the science. It is about helping patients achieve better outcomes. As more therapies reach the market, success will depend on our ability to simplify complexity, remove barriers and strengthen coordination across the healthcare ecosystem so more patients can benefit from these innovative treatments.
Fran Gregory is vice president of emerging therapies at Cardinal Health. Her background includes extensive clinical, health economics and outcomes research, and trade and commercial experience in the payer/PBM, specialty pharmacy and biotech manufacturer spaces. Her career reflects a consistent focus on complex, innovative, high-value pharmaceuticals, and a passion for breaking down barriers to access and care. She holds a Doctor of Pharmacy from University of Cincinnati, a Master of Business Administration from Xavier University and a Bachelor of Science from University of Cincinnati.