Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Joins 10 Other Leading Children’s Hospitals and Phlow Corp. to form an Unprecedented Coalition to Deliver Essential Medicines to Address Pediatric Drug Shortages

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Children's Hospital Los Angeles (CHLA) today joins in announcing the launch of a groundbreaking Children's Hospital Coalition: Powered by Phlow™ (CHC). This first-in-kind coalition brings together some of the top children’s hospitals across the nation, in collaboration with Phlow, to provide certainty in availability and access for key medicines necessary to sustain life and conquer disease and to address the nation’s broken essential medicines supply chain.

“Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is committed to serving as a national health care leader and prominent advocate for child health. To accomplish this, we must have access to the essential medicines needed to treat our patients,” says Children’s Hospital Los Angeles President and CEO Paul S. Viviano. “The Children’s Hospital Coalition, with Phlow, will be working to create a reliable and affordable supply of high-quality essential medicines for children’s hospitals across the nation while tackling the operational inefficiencies in America’s supply chain. It is so important for us to be a part of this initiative as we continue to further our mission of creating hope and building healthier futures for children.”

Shortages of essential medicines for children are a persistent problem plaguing hospitals across the United States. A 2019 survey of 330 U.S. hospitals, including 29 children’s hospitals, demonstrated that medicine shortages disproportionately and uniquely impact children’s hospitals. (Vizient, 2020) The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed further vulnerabilities in the overall U.S. hospital supply chain, particularly regarding essential injectable medications. To address this issue, the CHC is charged with a mission to deliver on the promise of ensuring a reliable supply of high-quality, affordable essential medicines to treat children.

Currently, the 11 founding hospital members of the CHC are: Arkansas Children’s, Boston Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital Los Angeles, Children’s Hospital of Richmond at VCU, Children’s National Hospital, Children’s Wisconsin, Cincinnati Children’s, Cook Children’s, Intermountain Primary Children’s Hospital, Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago, and Nationwide Children’s Hospital.

The coalition is working together to identify and prioritize the most needed essential medicines, including sterile injectable medicines and medications used to treat pediatric cancers and rare diseases. Phlow will work quickly to ensure a high-quality, reliable supply of these essential medicines and will provide transparent, cost-plus pricing for all coalition members under uniform long-term purchasing agreements. Through this collaboration, the CHC will work toward improving the delivery of pediatric care.

About Children’s Hospital Los Angeles

Founded in 1901, Children's Hospital Los Angeles is the highest-ranked hospital in California and fifth in the nation on the prestigious U.S. News & World Report Honor Roll of best children’s hospitals. U.S. News ranks Children’s Hospital Los Angeles in all 10 specialty categories. Clinical care at the hospital is led by physicians who are faculty members of the Keck School of Medicine of USC through an affiliation dating from 1932. The hospital also leads the largest pediatric residency training program at a freestanding children’s hospital in the Western United States. The Saban Research Institute of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles is home to all basic, translational, clinical and community research conducted at the hospital, allowing proven discoveries to quickly reach patients. Our mission: to create hope and build healthier futures. To learn more, follow us Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube and Twitter, and visit our blog at CHLA.org/blog.

About Phlow

Phlow Corp. is a trailblazing, essential medicines impact company that is reimagining essential medicines from start to finish through the use of flow chemistry. Everything Phlow does is designed to promote access to affordable, high-quality essential medicines for all Americans. Phlow provides a solution to the broken essential medicines supply chain by offering a resilient end-to-end solution that is U.S.-based, comprehensive, and fully integrated. With the support of an industry leading team, experienced strategic partners, and established relationships at the policy, regulatory, and federal levels, Phlow will manufacture active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and finished pharmaceutical products domestically for essential medicines critical to the nation’s healthcare. Through the use of continuous-flow technology and green chemistry, Phlow is able to reduce costs and waste, improve quality and yield, and offer a more environmentally friendly alternative to batch manufacturing.