Realistic NPP speed by country

What the process actually looks like

A Named Patient Program request moves through five practical stages: intake, feasibility, documentation, sourcing, and delivery. Each stage has a clear input, a clear output, and a set of failure modes that delay the cycle if unaddressed. Understanding the stages — what happens, what can go wrong, and what a clean hand-off looks like — is the single most useful thing a patient or physician can do up front.

Intake and feasibility

Intake collects the minimum information needed to assess feasibility: drug name and strength, indication, destination country, treating physician, and a one-line clinical summary. Feasibility is a short assessment — usually returned within one business day — that answers three questions: Is the destination-country pathway open for this drug and indication? Is the clinical picture appropriate for a named-patient request? Can sourcing and logistics be coordinated within a timeline that is clinically acceptable? If any answer is no, we say so plainly.

Documentation

Documentation is where most cycles stall. The required set usually includes: prescription, clinical justification, patient consent, patient ID, hospital letterhead, and destination-country-specific forms (ethics opinion, pharmacovigilance commitment, distributor attestation). We provide templates and examples for every document that we can provide templates for, and we flag destination-specific requirements on the country pages. We do not file on the physician’s behalf.

Sourcing and logistics

Once the documentation is complete, sourcing is triggered: acquisition from a DSCSA-compliant US specialty wholesaler, dispensing under a US-licensed pharmacist, packaging under qualified cold-chain, and international shipment with a continuous-read temperature logger and a specialty-logistics carrier. Typical US-side cycle from sourcing authorization to carrier pick-up is 24 to 72 hours; international transit varies by destination but is usually 2 to 7 days.

Delivery and receipt

Delivery is to the treating physician or hospital pharmacy, not direct-to-patient for specialty-cold-chain product. On receipt, the logger data is verified, the DSCSA documentation is signed, and the product is placed in qualified storage. Any excursion triggers quarantine and a replacement cycle under our quality SOPs.

What “good” timeline looks like

From a clean intake with a willing physician: feasibility in 1 business day, documentation collection in 3-10 business days (mostly patient-side), sourcing and shipment prep in 2-5 business days, international transit in 2-7 days, and receipt/release in 1 business day. Realistic end-to-end is 2-4 weeks for a first cycle. Repeat cycles for maintenance therapies are materially faster because documentation is reusable.

Further reading

See Realistic NPP timelines and our pathway explainers for destination-specific process maps.

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Start a request