Amber Specialty Pharmacy Awarded NASP Specialty Pharmacy of the Year

Amber Specialty Pharmacy was announced the winner of the 2020 National Association of Specialty Pharmacy’s (NASP) Specialty Pharmacy of the Year Award.

The award, which was 1 of 4 presented at the 2020 NASP Annual Meeting & Expo Virtual Experience, is given to the “Specialty pharmacy that embodies the practice of pharmacy in the field of specialty.” All nominations must be a current annual dues NASP member and be nominated by an active NASP member.

“On behalf of Amber Specialty Pharmacy, I just wanted to say thank you to NASP. It’s a tremendous honor. We strive every day to give excellent patient care and our award is changing (the) lives of our patients and our caregivers,” Amber Specialty Pharmacy President Aaron Wiese said. “But to be recognized with this award, especially Pharmacy of the Year, is a tremendous honor for us and our team.”

The winner of the NASP Distinguished Service Award was Rick Miller, BSPharm, MBA, MSPharm, CSP, vice president, clinical and professional services, at AllianceRx Walgreens Prime. Miller was 1 of 5 nominees for the award, which is given to an individual who has made a sustained contribution to leadership within NASP and the specialty industry as a whole.

"Rick helped develop the CSP accreditation program and NASP is proud to be the only organization offering a specialty pharmacist credential to the industry. Rick was instrumental in helping secure initial support and an ongoing commitment from his employers—then Walgreens and now AllianceRx Walgreens Prime—for the NASP specialty pharmacy continuing education catalog of program offerings," NASP President and CEO Sheila M. Arquette, RPh, said.

Two new awards were also presented at this year’s expo. The first of the awards, the Specialty Pharmacy Service Excellence Award, is given to an individual who “has demonstrated a sustained commitment to supporting the delivery of high-quality Specialty Pharmacy service and care.” The individual must be not be a pharmacist and provide consistent, reliable support to patients.

The award went to Adam Winstead, vice president of information technology at Amber Specialty Pharmacy.

“I’m both surprised and honored to be accepting this award,” Winstead said. “I actually had no idea I was nominated. Thank you to my peers for the nomination. Thank you to NASP. I’ve had the privilege to work with many amazing teams and coworkers at Amber Specialty Pharmacy.”

The second of the new awards, the “Strategic Partner of the Year Award,” is awarded to a non-pharmacy corporation that “has made a substantial contribution to supporting specialty pharmacy over the past year.” The award went to ParcelShield, which is a parcel management service. ParcelShield helps specialty pharmacies manage and deliver therapies to patients.

“We are honored and humbled to receive this award,” Guillermo Sollberger, president and CEO of ParcelSheild said. “NASP does such wonderful work pulling all of us together to improve our industry and improve the service to the patients we serve.”

Since the beginning of the pandemic, ParcelShield has intervened on more than 175,000 distressed orders and physically rescued 27,000 medication orders worth over $160 million, according to the company. ParcelSheild anticipates rescuing more than 400,000 distressed prescription shipments, valued over $2.5 billion, for the year by the end of 2020.²

According to Sollberger said the company was thrilled with the NASP recognition, and honored to receive the first Strategic Partner of the Year award.

“Specialty pharmacies compose our core clientele and we strive every day to monitor specialty medication parcels, ensure patients receive their medication on-time, provide real-time proactive updates to keep patients informed, and rescue distressed packages when needed. While improving patient service is our core mission, we also save pharmacies both time and money by preventing unnecessary drug losses and additional phone calls caused by preventable delivery delays,” said Sollberger, in a prepared statement.²

Reference

1. Rick Miller receives National Association of Specialty Pharmacy (NASP) Distinguished Service Award for significant contributions to NASP leadership, specialty pharmacy industry [News Release] September 16, 2020. PR Newswire. https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/rick-miller-receives-national-association-of-specialty-pharmacy-nasp-distinguished-service-award-for-significant-contributions-to-nasp-leadership-specialty-pharmacy-industry-301132133.html. Accessed September 16, 2020

2. National Association of Specialty Pharmacy Names ParcelShield ‘Strategic Partner of the Year’ [News Release] September 17, 2020; Redmond, OR. ParcelShield. Accessed September 22, 2020.