Trade & Channel Strategies 2025: Curatio's Priorities for Next Year

In a conversation with Pharmaceutical Commerce, Curatio’s Cheryl Allen reflected on two decades of evolution in commercial trade and distribution, noting how traditionally separate functions, supply chain operations and patient support services, are increasingly merging. She highlighted a growing shift toward integrated downstream models, including the rise of medically integrated dispensing, where physician groups establish in-house pharmacy capabilities to streamline access and enhance continuity of care. What began in oncology, Allen noted, is now expanding into specialties such as neurology, rheumatology, and dermatology, driven by practice consolidation and new value levers tied to management services organizations and group purchasing dynamics.

As the industry gathers at the conference, Allen said she is particularly focused on how organizations can safeguard the integrity of the US drug supply chain. She underscored persistent training gaps and the need for manufacturers to build stronger internal development pathways, ensuring future leaders are equipped to manage increasingly complex distribution environments. More foundational education, she added, could open doors for talent interested in entering the trade and channel space.

Looking toward 2026, Allen outlined Curatio’s priorities around navigating a shifting regulatory landscape and deepening its analysis of both pipeline and on-market products. She emphasized the role of emerging technologies and business-support tools in helping trade teams evaluate analogs, anticipate distribution needs, and design models resilient to regulatory change. Curatio, she said, is focused on supporting manufacturers as they plan for the next three to five years of product movement and patient access.

A transcript of Allen’s full conversation with PC appears below.

PC: Heading into the New Year, what are some of Curatio’s priorities?

Allen: Looking ahead, we're thinking a lot about the regulatory framework with which we're all navigating a changing space. We're anticipating a lot from different regulatory perspectives, and specifically here at Curatio, what we are endeavoring to do is really look within what is the products that are within the pharmaceutical pipeline, monitoring those as well as the on-market products.

When we start thinking about analogs—and our industry is very attuned to analogs—when we think about distribution of products and patient access and support services, I think what we at Curatio are very excited about is technology and support tools that are able to help with just the pure business aspects of monitoring the pharmaceutical pipeline and what's on market, and then to look at different ways that trade teams have designed their distribution from a historic perspective, layering on the regulatory framework that we're working within, and then looking at forward, at what we think the next, say, three to five years, would be to be able to support the products in that distribution.