Category Archives: Pharmacy

Lutz Pharmacy and Professional Compounding in Altoona announced today that they have sold the business to Austin, Minn.-based Astrup Drug, Inc. Gene and Susan Lutz have operated the pharmacy, located at 120 8th Street SE, since 1974. In the early 1980s the Lutzes began serving long term care facilities and the needs of their patients. In 2007 they added a second pharmacy (Lutz Long Term Care Pharmacy) to focus on the long-term care side of their business. In a news release, the owners said they expect to continue to do some pharmacy-related work and plan to volunteer for some medical mission work and continue their involvement in national and international pharmacy organizations. The Lutzes said they wanted to find a buyer that would not close the business, since its common for national chains to buy out the prescription list and close the pharmacy. Lutz Pharmacy will become Astrups 13th location in Iowa and Minnesota. The acquisition of Lutz Pharmacy and Professional Compounding and Lutz Long Term Care expands our ability to serve long term care facilities and provides us with an opportunity to add a more robust compounding practice, said Tim Gallagher, COO at Astrup Drug, Inc. Lutz Employees have … Continue reading →

U.S. pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs) should be able to generate significant reimbursement to remain financially viable, as long as companies demonstrate value by moderating the growth of payor drug spending, according to a Fitch Ratings report. The PBM industry has increased transparency regarding pricing and rebates to payors, although pressure to further improve transparency persists which could pressure margins by limiting the industry's negotiating levers. Normal tensions between PBMs and retail chains will persist, potentially leading to lower volume and margins for the PBMs. Persistently high employment has reduced the rolls of the insured. Patients without health insurance generally use fewer healthcare services and products, and the currently soft prescription utilization trends highlight this issue. Fitch expects the dynamic of weak employment and resulting soft utilization will continue during the intermediate term. The long-term trend of increased generic utilization will continue for at least the next three years. This trend should support PBM margins given the higher margins that generic drugs offer PBMs relative to their branded counterparts. Going forward, Fitch expects PBMs will further increase their presence in the specialty drug segment, as it offers significant revenue and margin opportunities. The anticipated near-term entry of biosimilars into the U.S. … Continue reading →

Public release date: 27-Mar-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ] Contact: Emma Rayner emma.rayner@nottingham.ac.uk 44-077-382-91242 University of Nottingham A new NHS community pharmacy scheme to help patients understand and get the best out of a new medicine is to be tested and evaluated by a team led by The University of Nottingham in collaboration with University College London and Warwick Business School. The New Medicine Service started in October 2011 and will run until March 2013 with funding of up to 55 million in both 2011/12 and 2012/13 available for its delivery. The service provides support from community pharmacists for people with long-term conditions who are newly prescribed a medicine to help them solve any problems with their medication or its management. The study is being led by Professor Rachel Elliott and Dr Matthew Boyd. Dr Boyd said: "The New Medicine Service is a great opportunity to formalise the excellent work community pharmacists already do every day supporting patients with their medicines. This study intends to provide an evidence base for how pharmacists can support patients with their new medicines. It is hoped it will inform the development of more pharmacy services in the future." Professor Nick Barber from the … Continue reading →

Connexus Technology, a trusted innovator of data management tools for the healthcare industry, collaborated with Burmans Specialty Pharmacy to develop a sophisticated software solution to accelerate their specialty pharmacy business. The software, along with a user friendly patient portal has been designed to better administer the clinical management of patient care and streamline internal reporting processes. Existing data management tools were not providing us with the capabilities beyond gap analysis to improve our patient clinical care. We took it upon ourselves to build a customized solution that integrates our systems, while streamlining our monthly reporting processes, said John Regester, COO, Burmans Specialty Pharmacy. The investment in this software and the collaboration with Connexus enables us to be clinically superior and is one of our biggest advantages in 2012. Burmans vision was to develop software that could act as a one-stop shop and enable the pharmacy to offer better patient care. The company identified the need for this software to elevate their patient management capabilities including secure sharing of lab results, meeting insurance requirements and ongoing patient monitoring. This level of clinical management requires software that provides greater insight and visibility between the pharmacy operating system, patient and provider. Connexus provided … Continue reading →

ROCK HILL -- Police say a break-in at a Rock Hill pharmacy over the weekend could be related to similar break-ins at another local pharmacy. About 1 a.m. Saturday, police responded to an alarm at Carolina Pharmacy at 725 Cherry Road, according to a Rock Hill Police report. Officers noticed the two window panes at the pharmacys drive-through had been broken, and glass was found on the pavement. Nothing was reported stolen, the report states, although the window will cost about $150 to replace. Owner Vipul Patel, who also has a Lancaster-area pharmacy, opened Carolina Pharmacy in November. Store video from the break-in shows a suspect wearing a ball cap, a long-sleeve hooded sweatshirt, jeans and white tennis shoes walk toward the pharmacys drive-through window. He uses a pickaxe to break the window. The suspect leaves but returns about half an hour later with a duffle bag, which he tosses inside. He then crawls into the pharmacy. Footage from inside the business shows the suspect start to walk around, but he looks at something, turns and leaves through the window. Patel said most likely the suspect set off an interior alarm or saw the pharmacys cameras. He said they are … Continue reading →

MEDIA RELEASE 26 March 2012 The Guild endorses new pharmacy model The Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand (the Guild) endorses the new proposed pharmacy services model subject to a number of provisos. The new model is being released today. Once consultation on the model is complete, and feedback has been incorporated, the model will be the basis of the next Pharmacy Services Agreement (PSA) on 1 July 2012. The new model is a commitment to the future viability of quality pharmacy services delivered in a community setting. The Guilds work on the model has evolved over a number of years, with significant resources and time spent on finalising the model. As a membership organisation representing community pharmacy owners, we invested heavily in the PSA process with the DHBs, says Guild President, Karen Crisp. We did so because the changes to pharmacy services are for the benefit of patients and the pharmacy profession will be better recognised for the quality services that we provide. The new PSA sees a shift from pharmacists being paid on a volume based model to a patient focused model. As the new model is complex and includes changes to service expectations and financial incentives, it will … Continue reading →

A young man armed with a hunting knife jumped a pharmacy counter in Guilford a couple of weeks ago and, after threatening the pharmacist, got away with a large amount of narcotics. Pharmacy robberies nonexistent several years ago are dramatically increasing in Maine. There were 24 last year and eight already in the first three months of 2012. The number of robberies has risen so fast that U.S. Attorney for Maine Thomas E. Delahanty II took notice and in mid-2010 spearheaded a multi-agency effort to review all such robberies to see if they qualify for federal prosecution. There was in 2010 a substantial increase, almost threefold, of armed robberies or nighttime break-ins at pharmacies, mostly for OxyContin or other painkillers, Delahanty said. There is a demand for the prescription drugs, especially painkillers. I think some people see them as an easy target. They know they have the product. Maine drug addicts want prescription painkillers OxyContin was the No. 1 choice for years and recently has been replaced by oxycodone and the ones who arm themselves and rob pharmacies often are desperate junkies feeding an opiate addiction, said Mike Wardrop, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration resident agent for Maine. Its bad business. … Continue reading →

MINNETONKA, Minn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- Shop n Save Pharmacy, a division of SUPERVALU (NYSE: SVU - News), is joining UnitedHealth Groups Diabetes Prevention and Control Alliance (DPCA), giving Shop n Save Pharmacy customers access to the Alliances innovative, community-based Diabetes Control Program, based on curriculum that has been clinically proven to help control type 2 diabetes. Shop n Save Pharmacy is now offering the Diabetes Control Program at 26 locations in the St. Louis metro area. Shop n Save Pharmacy will provide patient education and support from trained pharmacists by appointment to help people with diabetes better control their condition and reduce the risk of developing complications such as cardiovascular, kidney and eye disease. In addition, pharmacists in these select Shop n Save Pharmacy locations will conduct blood glucose, cholesterol and blood pressure testing services for program participants and provide them with on-the-spot results, enabling patients to get immediate feedback on their status or progress in managing their diabetes. SUPERVALU is proud to partner with the Diabetes Prevention and Control Alliance to help make an impact on the nations diabetes epidemic through equipping andempowering patients to improve their health. Shop n Save pharmacists are well-positioned to improve our patients health due to … Continue reading →

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire -03/23/12)- Daxor Corporation (AMEX: DXR - News), a medical instrumentation and biotechnology company, today announced the receipt of a signed trial agreement from Shertech Pharmacy in Charlotte, North Carolina. This agreement will provide Shertech with a Daxor BVA-100 Blood Volume Analyzer, an instrument which enables semi-automated measurement of a patient's total blood volume, red blood cell volume and plasma volume. Blood volume abnormalities are observed in a variety of cardiac conditions and have been associated with poor prognosis. Published studies using the BVA-100 have shown that blood volume measurement is important in treating heart failure, critical care patients in intensive care units, and in diagnosing the true status of complex anemias and syncope (fainting). Shertech Pharmacy is an independently owned specialty radiopharmacy with facilities in North and South Carolina and was founded in 1991. Shertech provides radio nuclear medical services to over 60 hospitals (the smallest being a 60-bed facility and the largest being an 890-bed facility) in the North and South Carolina areas. The Daxor BVA-100 will be housed at the Greenville Memorial Hospital in Greenville, SC. The medical community and retail public in the region rely on the friendly, well-trained staff to provide the highest … Continue reading →

NEW YORK, NY--(Marketwire -03/23/12)- Daxor Corporation (AMEX: DXR - News), a medical instrumentation and biotechnology company, today announced the receipt of a signed trial agreement from Shertech Pharmacy in Charlotte, North Carolina. This agreement will provide Shertech Charlotte with a Daxor BVA-100 Blood Volume Analyzer. In February of 2012 Daxor placed a BVA-100 Blood Volume Analyzer at Shertech Pharmacy in Easley, South Carolina. Shertech Pharmacy has been providing radiopharmaceuticals, PET radiopharmaceutical products and services to the Carolinas since 2006. This combination of nuclear products is designed to more closely fit the growing demand of Nuclear Medicine, Nuclear Cardiology and Nuclear Oncology imaging and therapy. The pharmacy professionals in Shertech facilities provide the expertise necessary to offer these pharmaceutical specialties to a very active and patient oriented community like the Charlotte area. The North Carolina pharmacies in Charlotte and Kernersville (near Winston Salem and Greensboro) and South Carolina locations in Greenville, Spartanburg and Duncan provide nuclear diagnostics products in unit doses for individual patients. Shertech also provides prescription services to more than 175,000 patients annually and logs more than a million miles per year to ensure their time sensitive products are delivered when the customer needs them. The full gamut of … Continue reading →