Our Patients

Innovation
Patient Safety
Patient Support, Education, and Financial Assistance

Since our inception, we have been committed to our patients and their families. Our medicines treat life-threatening conditions that are extremely difficult for patients to manage, with a tremendous impact on quality of life for patients and their families. At United Therapeutics, we not only provide treatments, but we strive to ensure that patients have the support, education, and assistance they need when using our therapies to manage their disease.

Innovation

We seek to push technology forward for the benefit of patients, with the ultimate goal of developing cures for pulmonary hypertension and other end-stage organ diseases through our organ manufacturing program, which includes multiple technologies and programs to create an unlimited supply of transplantable organs. Please see our Pipeline page to learn more.

Lung Biotechnology PBC, a wholly owned subsidiary of United Therapeutics, houses our organ manufacturing work which is aimed at dramatically increasing the supply of transplantable organs. It is also the first public benefit corporation (PBC) subsidiary of a public biotech or pharmaceutical company. As a PBC, Lung Biotechnology is chartered with the express purpose of “address[ing] the acute national shortage of transplantable lungs and other organs with a variety of technologies that either delay the need for such organs or expand the supply,” and is expressly allowed to consider the interests of this public benefit purpose and to operate in a responsible and sustainable manner in addition to the emphasis on shareholder value. Our PBC is one way that we reflect the Business Roundtable Statement on the Purpose of a Corporation (August 2019) signed by 181 CEOs who commit to lead their companies for the benefit of all stakeholders – customers, employees, suppliers, communities, and shareholders.

REHABILITATING DISCARDED LUNGS INTO LIFE-SAVING ORGANS

Since 2014, we have been developing technologies to convert donor lungs deemed unsuitable for transplantation into usable lungs through ex-vivo lung perfusion (EVLP). To date, we have performed over 150 EVLP procedures that resulted in successfully transplanted lungs for patients with end-stage lung disease. These are lungs that otherwise would have been discarded, absent the use of EVLP technology. We have two facilities dedicated to these technologies, including a site net zero facility we recently constructed on the campus of Mayo Clinic Jacksonville.

Patient Safety

Protecting and improving patient health is our most important goal. To ensure our patients’ safety, we have a robust safety governance structure and a comprehensive set of standards designed to ensure that we have proper oversight over pharmacovigilance (PV) activities. We extensively monitor the use of our therapies, throughout the product life cycle starting from development programs and continuing into the post approval phase, to identify potential side effects, and to ensure a positive benefit-risk ratio. We provide mandatory training of our employees and our third-party collaborators to ensure proper identification, rapid collection, and analysis of adverse events (AE) regarding the use of our therapies.

Patient safety risk minimization is at the core of our safety and PV practice. Our PV team is continuously monitoring AEs for any key risks and stands ready to enact risk minimization measures in order to prevent or minimize AE associated risks for patients using our therapies. These principles also guide our development efforts and strategies. For example, one of our lead products, Remodulin®, is delivered by either subcutaneous administration, which often causes site pain reaction, or by intravenous administration, which involves the use of an indwelling catheter and carries a risk of bloodstream infections. We are developing several next-generation technologies to help mitigate or eliminate these concerns.

Patient Support, Education, and Financial Assistance

We take a holistic approach to our patients and their families, expanding our focus beyond just treatments and therapies to include a variety of support, education, and assistance programs related to our products. A few of our key programs are outlined at our Patients page. Among other initiatives, we sponsor the PAH Initiative, which is committed to improving the lives of patients with PAH through education and empowerment, and we are a long-standing supporter of the Pulmonary Hypertension Association (PHA).

We have dedicated teams to ensure that patients have access to our treatments. One team works with insurers to strive for the best possible coverage for our drugs, and we are proud of the results we have achieved. We also have a variety of options for patients who may still need financial assistance to pay for our treatments. And we have a dedicated team, ASSIST (Access Solutions and Support Team), that helps our patients and their families navigate this complex area.

Finally, patient education is critical to ensuring effective management of a complex and life-threatening disease such as PAH. In addition, many PAH therapies are specialty medications that bring with them unique complexities requiring in-depth patient education to ensure safe and effective administration. For this reason, we have engaged a network of contracted specialty pharmacies, with dedicated nurses and pharmacists across the country who are experienced in training and educating patients on how to safely and effectively use our medications. It is this level of interactions with our patients – either through nursing or the pharmacy staff – that allows us to educate our patients as effectively as we possibly can.