Sharita Howe, PharmD, on Leadership, Pharmacy, and Innovation: ‘Pharmacists Are Like Superheroes, We Can Do Anything’

Pharmacy Times interviewed Sharita Howe, PharmD, director of Partner Strategy and Development, NCODA in Richmond, Virginia, on her recent acknowledgement by MM+M as a part of the next wave of health care leaders in their recognition of 40 under 40 leaders in health care, as well as her career journey, leadership recognition, and the evolving role of pharmacists in health care.

Howe started her career in retail pharmacy before transitioning into specialty pharmacy and eventually joining an oncology practice in Richmond, Virginia, where she led efforts to build an outpatient pharmacy program for oral oncolytics. Later, she worked at Pfizer as a field medical director before joining NCODA to focus on business development. She credits her willingness to say “yes” to new opportunities as a key factor in her career progression.

Pharmacists checking inventory at a hospital pharmacy. Image Credit: © Jacob Lund - stock.adobe.com

At the MM+M 2025 award ceremony, Howe spoke about balancing science and storytelling, a skill pharmacists use daily to translate complex medical information into digestible insights for patients, providers, and policymakers. She emphasized that pharmacists bring versatile skills that allow them to thrive in various non-traditional roles, including business and advocacy. She highlighted the importance of this balance in advocacy, policy reform, and patient education, particularly in areas such as pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reform and biosimilars adoption. She believes this recognition by MM+M highlights the expanding impact of pharmacists beyond clinical settings.

Pharmacy Times: What is your role with NCODA, and how did you get into your work with NCODA as a pharmacist?

Sharita Howe, PharmD: I got into this work as a pharmacist—it's actually a long story, because I've been a few different places. I actually started in retail pharmacy and worked through specialty pharmacy. While I was in specialty pharmacy, I actually had the opportunity to join the team at an oncology practice here in Richmond, Virginia. When I started there, really, I would say, saying yes, has gotten me to the place where I am now. So, when I was there, I had the opportunity to join as the pharmacist in charge, which I had never done. We were building out our outpatient pharmacy program for oral oncolytics, but I decided to say yes, because the experience was something that I probably wouldn't come across later in my career, and it was a perfect time. So said yes to that opportunity.

From there, spent about 4 years in practice, and then moved to Pfizer, where I was a field medical director for population health decision makers. Spent some time there and then joined in NCODA about 14 months ago. One of the highlights of my story is that when I was in practice and joined as the pharmacist in charge at the oncology practice, I didn't know what I was doing in oncology. I'd recently come from retail and come from specialty where my focus was more on HIV, and so I really needed that network of individuals to be able to lean on as I was building out the program at the oncology practice. So NCODA sort of stood in the middle for me as a liaison for me, and asking questions [like], How do I do this? How do I come up with an adherence program? What are you doing at your practice? So, when the opportunity came to join NCODA on the business development side, even though it's not what you typically see for a pharmacist, it's something that I had to jump on, because I love the organization so much and the help that they were able to provide to me when I was trying to figure everything out.

Pharmacy Times: You were recently acknowledged by MM+M as a part of the next wave of health care leaders in their recognition of 40 under 40 leaders in health care. Tell us about your perspective on this accomplishment, and how your experience in pharmacy may benefit you as a leader in health care.

Pharmacist in a white coat. Image Credit: © Maggi - stock.adobe.com

Howe: This nomination and honor were really a surprise for me. So, the 40 under 40 award was actually in health care marketing, and I don't think that you think of pharmacists in sort of a marketing role, or even, you know what I'm doing here at NCODA, which is business development. What it meant for me, and sort of the red thread that I've been leaning on this entire time since the nomination and the honor, is that pharmacists are like superheroes. We can do anything.

I think that you know what it means for me and the profession and being a PharmD is that, as I transition from retail and into private practice and then into industry and now at a nonprofit, is that we can do anything. The skills that we learn throughout our coursework and pharmacy school, the skills that we learn when we're in practice, whether it's retail, whether it's hospital, private practice, you learn how to balance so many different things. You have to be able to communicate with patients and prescribers alike. You have to often balance your soft skills and how you manage people. You have to balance the business aspect of running a pharmacy, especially if you're a pharmacy manager, a pharmacist in charge, or pharmacy director. You have to balance all these different things. So, I feel like it shapes you to be able to be a chameleon and do a lot of different things with that degree that you didn't think were possible. I think that's that experience that has been brought to this role is actually being that chameleon, and being able to fit into different boxes, to be able to say, “Hey, this is how you know, as a pharmacist, I bring my skills and my perspective to be able to communicate with our industry partners, to be able to make sure that we're providing the best resources for [health care practitioners] and the best resources that ultimately will impact patient care.”

Pharmacy Times: You spoke at the MM+M 2025 award ceremony in a session titled "Innovating Healthcare Messaging: Balancing Science and Storytelling." How do you think balancing science and storytelling may help to advance key issues in pharmacy?

Howe: The idea of balancing science and storytelling is not anything new to pharmacists. Because one of the things that's important when you talk about balancing science and storytelling, we have to do it a lot, because one of our main objectives when we interact with patients, nurses, physicians, is that we have to make the complex science that we learned either through our coursework or through our experiences, through our studies, accessible to the individual that we're talking to. So, really, the key here is taking highly technical information, highly complex information, and then making it digestible so that you get buy-in from the person that's on the other end. So that's where you have your data, and you analyze your data, and you understand that piece of it. But then, how do we bring in storytelling so that we can sort of distill the different concepts that you're trying to relay to your patients or to your physicians, or to whomever you're talking to. Part of what we do as pharmacists is we get buy-in from our patients to take their medications. So, you have to be able to balance the science and the storytelling there. We have to get buy in from physicians when we're navigating the pharmacist role and how we sit on the integrated care team and how we provide patient centered care, we often have to utilize science, but then also weave in the story of anecdotes and how pharmacists were able to impact patient care.

I think another way. So, I talked about the patient perspective, and I talked about the provider perspective, but then also when we think about advocacy and policy change, which is where pharmacists are able to sit as well. Again, when we think about things going on like PBM reform, when we think about biosimilars, we have to think through, How do we tell the story of this, but also make sure that the science is there, so you're receiving that buy-in from those parties that are listening to the story that you're trying to tell.

So, I think that ultimately, the bottom line is that when you're thinking about balancing science and balancing storytelling, it can really fit into whatever we're trying to do as pharmacists, but really our niche is interacting with the patients, interacting with the providers, also advocacy and policy change and ultimately building trust in science. Pharmacists and nurses—we serve as the most trusted professions in health care, and we continue to be that way, because we're able to take science and make it digestible for the patients and the providers that we serve.

Pharmacy Times: What are some key areas in pharmacy that you are paying attention to this year, and how might pharmacy leadership balancing science and storytelling be able to support these areas?

Howe: With NCODA, where I am now, a lot of what we look at is specific to oncolytics, and specific to oncology medications and things that are impacting the oncology community. One of the things that we're really focused on right now is Medicare Part D reform and drug pricing and policy changes, [the Inflation Reduction Act], and things like that. So, it's really important here, because when we're thinking about patient impact, when we think about Part D reform, and we're thinking about a $2000 out-of-pocket cap, and also the ability for this cap to be smooth over the course of a year, what does that mean for our patients that are accessing medications, and then what does that mean for our practices and how they have to operationalize utilization of the smoothing program? So, one of the things that is really important is to be able to communicate anytime you have something that's this drastic of a change, it's how do you communicate to your patients and educate your patients around the importance of maybe key aspects of the change? One of the things that we have to be mindful of in oncology is that they could be enrolled in the smoothing program outside of oncology. Sometimes practices may not fill medications that are outside of the realm of the oncolytics and the supportive therapies. So, how do we navigate our patients through the smoothing program when there may be patient assistance foundations available for their condition? So how do we navigate that? How do we operationalize the actual pieces that are needed to be able to bill the insurance or to let them know that the patient is enrolled in the smoothing program? And so, all of that takes great storytelling, and one, there's the operational science behind it, and again, getting that buy in for practices to say, “Yes, this is what we need to do for our patients, and this is what we need to do to make sure that the practices run smoothly through this time,” and especially here in the beginning of the year, when a lot of the changes have taken place.

Now, one of the other things I'm really focused on as well is [artificial intelligence (AI)]. I feel like everybody's sort of focused on AI. One of the things that I'm really passionate about when it comes to AI and its usage, is making sure that the data sets that are incorporated into that machine learning process are relevant to the patient populations that you may be seeing. I know that there's talk or there are systems in place where you can have an AI skin scan to look to see if there are certain blemishes on the skin that may look cancerous. Well, what data is going into those models, and does it take into account how skin looks on people who are Black or Brown. So, that is a little bit more of an innovative way to look at science and storytelling, because in that example, I'm looking at what science or data may not be there, and how that can affect patients, and thinking through again, what is it that you need to know if you're starting to implement these technologies within your practice, and how is it ultimately going to impact that patient population? Again, getting buy-in from physicians and from your medically integrated care team to say, “Hey, maybe we should do things a little bit different if we are going to start to incorporate AI into different engagements.”

Pharmacy Times: Any closing thoughts?

Howe: If you're a pharmacist or a health care professional and you're like, “Hey, how can I do something different? I want to do something different. I'm not sure if I want to have a patient facing role, but maybe I want to try something different. Maybe I want to go into marketing. Maybe I want to go into business development.” My closing thought here is that, say yes to new opportunities. I think the way that health care is going with policy changes and advocacy, with all of the different complexities of specialties like oncology or rheumatology, that it's just really important to realize that there's so much that pharmacists, nurse practitioners, nurses, a PPS, physicians, there's so much value that you can bring to these conversations. So just to put yourself out there to be a part of these different conversations, so that people are able to incorporate your perspectives as health care providers as we're moving forward into challenges and reform with the health care system.