Genentech's goal is and always will be to get people the medicines they need.
We continue to believe the specialty distribution model is the best way for us to ensure patients receive our infused cancer medicines when and where they need them.
Avastin, Herceptin and Rituxan have been successfully distributed to community doctors through this model for almost a decade.
Hospitals and community doctors have been successfully purchasing our newer infused cancer medicines, Perjeta, Kadcyla and Gazyva, this way since 2012.
Our primary concern is that Novation states their survey uncovered impact to patient care and patient treatment delays.
If it is true patients are not getting these life-saving medicines, we are deeply concerned we are not hearing about it directly from hospitals or in a timely manner.
We can only resolve issues if we are know where they are occurring. An anonymous survey does not help us resolve patient care issues.
We've only received 3 reports of patient access concerns directly from hospitals, and none have been reported since mid-October.
In the limited instances when we have been notified of an issue, we worked directly with the affected hospital and immediately resolved the issue.
The most effective way for us to resolve any operational issues is that we work directly with the affected hospital. If any hospital is experiencing problems receiving our medicines, we urge them to contact us directly.
We have a dedicated hotline 1-800-551-2231 (M-F, 6AM- 5PM PST) and email address [email protected]. These have been in place since we made the change and were communicated to hospitals as part of the notification about the change.