Longitude Health

"As more and more limited distribution drugs enter the marketplace, often in the form of new cell and gene therapies, health systems face market, regulatory, and competitive barriers to obtaining and administering these therapies to their patients and communities. ...  Jigar Thakkar's experience in building top-performing specialty pharmacy operations, along with the talented pharmacy leaders within the Member organizations, will combine to bring well-tested, and well-respected, expertise to the task of shaping a specialty pharmacy offering to the needs of health systems and their patients.” - Paul Mango https://lnkd.in/easQEXFj

Welcome to Jigar Thakkar who has been named the chief executive officer of Longitude Rx, a specialty pharmacy initiative. Longitude Rx is the first health-system focused solution selected by the Longitude Health members. Jigar will lead the effort to create a specialty pharmacy initiative tailored to the specific needs of health systems, expected to launch in early 2025. Jigar joins Longitude Health from OU Health in Oklahoma where he served as the Chief Administrative Officer and Chief Pharmacy Officer. Jigar built a specialty pharmacy program for OU Health that notably grew to $470M in less than four years, leading to greater integration of care delivery and clinical growth within the health system. Prior to OU Health, Jigar was a Managing Director at FTI Consulting’s healthcare practice. He earned his PharmD from Midwestern University, Master of Health Care Delivery Science from Dartmouth College and an MBA from Northwestern University. Read more about Jigar Thakkar's announcement and Longitude Rx https://lnkd.in/g-4Q8UUu

"What we've learned throughout COVID and thereafter is bigger is not better, that actually better is better. … This is not about competing on the basis of structure—it’s about competing on the basis of capabilities.” – Paul Mango, chief executive officer of Longitude Health, shared with Dave Muoio of Fierce Healthcare https://lnkd.in/esj8h3N5

Earlier this week, Paul Mango and Brett Moraski shared a deeper dive of Longitude Health with Blake Madden of Hospitalogy. See the article here included in Hospitalogy's October recap (https://lnkd.in/eAveGjJZ)

"Together, we can work more efficiently on each of these issues than we could as one-off projects. If we develop something that has a lot of value in healthcare, we don’t want it to be exclusively for us. We want to share it across the industry," - Rod Hochman, M.D., president and CEO of Providence and founding member of Longitude Health.

Today, Baylor Scott & White Health, Memorial Hermann Health System, Novant Health and Providence announced the formation of Longitude Health, a new organization that aims to revolutionize the way health systems operate, delivering impactful change for patients across the United States. Longitude Health is a groundbreaking initiative that will address health care’s most complex challenges and opportunities. Drawing on the expertise of the member organizations, Longitude Health will create value, develop and scale innovative solutions, for the benefit of our patients and the communities we serve. Longitude Health is led by Paul Mango as the chief executive officer and Brett Moraski as the chief financial officer. Longitude Health will identify, develop, and scale capability-based solutions to enhance core operational functions and transform health system performance. We look forward to leading the healthcare ecosystem with bold solutions that bring value for patients. Read more in the press release announcement here. https://lnkd.in/e6KsMJU6