When conventional access fails

The gap we exist to close

Every year, thousands of patients are prescribed a specialty medicine they cannot obtain in their home country. The drug may not be registered locally. It may be registered but unavailable in hospital pharmacies. It may be available but not reimbursed, with a local list price higher than the US ex-manufacturer price. Or it may be the wrong formulation, the wrong dose, or a counterfeit risk. For oncology biologics, rare-disease therapies, and gene and cell therapies, this gap is the rule rather than the exception.

What “conventional access” usually means

Most patients and physicians work through one of four conventional channels: the local hospital formulary, a national reimbursement system, a clinical trial, or a manufacturer’s country affiliate. Each of these exists for good reason and works well when the drug is registered, reimbursed, and stocked locally. When those preconditions are not met, conventional access quietly fails, not because anyone did anything wrong, but because the infrastructure was never designed for the patient in front of you.

What Reserve Meds does

We are a US-licensed specialty-pharmacy service that coordinates cross-border access to FDA-approved specialty medicines through Named Patient Program and personal-import pathways in the patient’s destination country. We source from DSCSA-compliant US specialty wholesalers with full serial traceability. We require a prescription from a licensed physician in the destination country and a clinical justification. We coordinate cold-chain delivery to the treating physician or hospital pharmacy. We do not sell direct-to-patient without physician oversight, and we do not operate in gray-market channels.

Who we built this for

We built Reserve Meds for three groups. The first is patients and families who have been told locally that a therapy “isn’t available here” and need to understand what the cross-border pathway actually looks like. The second is physicians who want to prescribe a specific FDA-approved therapy for a specific patient and need a compliant way to source it. The third is hospitals and family offices that manage complex cases across borders and need a single clinical-pharmacy counterparty rather than a dozen.

What to expect when you reach out

You submit a short intake with the drug name, indication, and destination country. Our clinical team will reach out as our first cohort opens with a feasibility assessment and timeline. If the case is appropriate and the pathway is open, we provide a formal quote. Pricing is tiered by patient context rather than set on a single list, we publish our pricing principles on our ethics page. We decline only on the basis of clinical safety, regulatory feasibility, or sourcing compliance.

What we cannot do

We cannot replace the treating physician. We cannot offer medical advice for a specific patient. We cannot source controlled substances (DEA-scheduled drugs are excluded from our catalog). We cannot ship into jurisdictions where the destination-country pathway is closed for the indication in question. Where a case falls outside what we can coordinate compliantly, we will tell you plainly and, where possible, point you to an alternative.

Where to go next

If you are exploring whether your situation fits what we do, the fastest path is a short intake at reservemeds.com/request. If you want to read more before reaching out, start with How it works, our country-by-country guidance, or our articles and guides for patients and physicians.

Reviewed 2026-04-22 by Reserve Meds’s clinical and regulatory team. Next scheduled review: 2026-10-22.