WINSTON SALEM — A North Carolina startup is teaming up with tech giant IMB to help address the emerging drug shortage crisis during the COVID-19 pandemic.

OrbitalRX, a Winston Salem medication shortage management company, is combining its proprietary platform with IBM’s Micromedex, one of the largest online reference databases for medication information used by more than 4,500 hospitals and health systems worldwide.

Together, it will become one unified solution called “OrbitalRX and Micromedex,” which they say is designed to quickly analyze the supply chain and identify clinical alternatives for drugs that are in short supply.

The global drug shortage crisis has accelerated at an alarming rate during the COVID-19 crisis.

According to the American Society of Health-Systems Pharmacists (ASHP), close to 200 drugs are currently on the drug shortage list in the U.S. alone. Management of these shortages is further complicated by the fact that shortages vary by drug and location, as noted by the American Medical Association (AMA).

OrbitalRX said the he new solution will be designed to evaluate drug information, clinical evidence, and comparative efficacy, alongside the hospital’s drug inventory, purchase history, and utilization data. That, in turn, enables hospital providers, pharmacists and pharmacy technicians to proactively manage drug shortages, they said.

“As hospitals around the world experience shortages of life-saving therapies, there is an immediate, critical need for evidence-based information around clinical alternatives,”

“Our goal is to deliver a trusted platform to help pharmacists and other healthcare providers streamline workflow and rapidly respond to drug shortages with appropriate, safe and effective alternative therapies,” said Todd Nolen, IMB’s General Manager, IBM Watson Health, in a statement.

OrbitalRX is the only platform designed by hospital pharmacists, for hospital pharmacists, to unify supply chain and clinical utilization to manage drug shortages and deliver the power of real-time situational awareness in hospital pharmacy workflows.

“Patient safety can be compromised by supply chain interruptions, limited drug access due to high medication costs, and unforeseen events like COVID-19,” said OrbitalRX co-founder and CEO Adam Orsborn, in a statement.

“OrbitalRX and Micromedex aim to help health system pharmacy departments mitigate these workflow challenges by identifying drug alternatives from a clinical and supplier perspective.”

Orsborn, a former exec at Wake Forest Baptist Health, founded the startup in 2017, and bills it as the first “all-in-one pharmacy solution designed to mitigate the harm caused by drug shortages.”

OrbitalRX and Micromedex is anticipated to be available later this year.