Virtual opioid use dysfunction supplier Bicycle Well being introduced Thursday that it’s partnering with Albertsons, a grocery store and pharmacy chain, to increase get admission to to buprenorphine remedy for opioid use dysfunction.
Boston-based Bicycle Well being is a virtual well being corporate that works with payers and serves the ones suffering with habit by means of providing medicine for habit remedy, remedy and peer improve. A few of Bicycle Well being’s payer shoppers come with UnitedHealthcare, Aetna and Cigna. Boise, Idaho-based Albertsons is the second-largest grocery store chain within the U.S., with a footprint throughout 34 states.
Thru the brand new partnership, Bicycle Well being suppliers can prescribe buprenorphine prolonged liberate injections (differently referred to as Sublocade) to opioid use dysfunction sufferers. The medicine can then be administered by means of a pharmacist at an Albertsons pharmacy in a personal room. Buprenorphine is a partial opioid agonist this is used to regard the ones with opioid use dysfunction. Bicycle Well being then supplies follow-up care and behavioral well being improve thru its digital program.
About 2.5 million adults within the U.S. battled opioid use dysfunction in 2021, however just one in 5 gained drugs to regard the situation. Through operating with Bicycle Well being, Albertsons hopes to switch this statistic.
“Providing restoration injectables at our pharmacies fill a necessity in our communities the place sufferers are searching for choice remedy choices to regulate opioid use dysfunction in a stigma-free surroundings,” stated Erin Shaal, vp of prescription procurement, strong point and affected person care at Albertsons Corporations, in a commentary.
Sublocade is injected once-a-month, while Suboxone (some other type of buprenorphine) is taken orally every day. Ankit Gupta, CEO of Bicycle Well being, contended {that a} per thirty days injection is much less of a burden to sufferers than an oral day-to-day medicine.
“It’s a lot more straightforward to be adherent to the drugs protocol,” Gupta stated in an interview. “It’s additionally a lot more straightforward from a confidentiality point of view. Some sufferers don’t wish to have Suboxone at house or mendacity round.”
He added that Sublocade is also higher for sufferers who’re at upper possibility of diversion. Drugs diversion refers back to the unlawful use or distribution of pharmaceuticals.
The partnership’s products and services are to be had at greater than 700 Albertsons pharmacies throughout 17 states. They’re Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Montana, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas and Washington. Bicycle Well being and Albertsons plan to increase to extra states at some point.
Their partnership has no monetary element, Gupta stated. As a substitute, each firms will invoice insurers independently for his or her products and services.
Bicycle Well being first discovered this sort of improve used to be wanted after it introduced a partnership with the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) to serve the ones leaving jail. That’s a inhabitants that particularly struggles with getting access to improve for substance-use dysfunction. Thru that partnership, Bicycle Well being supplies digital opioid use dysfunction products and services to sufferers residing within the Bureau’s residential reentry facilities.
“Throughout the jail, they’re expanding the management of Sublocade and the usage of Sublocade,” Gupta stated. “So when a affected person is on Sublocade they usually go away, they want to proceed that remedy. It used to be in point of fact onerous for us and the BOP to seek out native suppliers around the states that we’re offering this deal with.”
Different digital opioid use dysfunction firms come with Ophelia, Workit Well being and Confidant Well being, which additionally prescribe buprenorphine.
Picture: mikdam, Getty Pictures
