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AmerisourceBergen, which earlier this year launched its newest product, the Auto-Med Efficiency Pharmacy R800, a robotic prescription dispensing device that can fill more than 200 labeled prescriptions an hour, has just opened a new facility in Buffalo Grove, Ill.

The company’s sub-unit AmerisourceBergen Technology Group is relocating from Vernon Hills to Buffalo Grove to provide its 180 employees increased space for research and development, as well as state-of-the-art showrooms for its pharmacy automation systems.

QS/1 has three new products to add to its automation provider company. The first, the QS/1 Message Center, sends an instant message to specific workstations, alerting personnel of important information that may need immediate attention. These message alerts can be targeted at customers in specific regions or at those who utilize specific products or third parties to ensure the messages are delivered only to those who need the information.

The company also has added features to its Interactive Voice Response. The Refill Reminder Call notifies patients that a prescription is due to be refilled and if a pharmacy has the proper technology, can lead to a prescription being refilled and ready for pickup. Finally, the QS/1 Remote Backup Service provides CRx customers the technology to achieve HIPAA requirements by encrypting patient information and transmitting it to data centers for storage.

Cerner Etreby has developed its flagship retail product, the Chain Pharmacy Management System, into a leading-edge technology that meets the needs for real-time information access, central fill options and effortless reporting capabilities, which is put into a Windows interface. The company also offers ApotheCare Medical Therapy Management, which pharmacists can use to access patient medication therapy, as well as to give a patient a Medication Action Plan, which is produced by the pharmacist, physician, other healthcare providers and the patient themselves. The ApotheCare program is part of the Chain Pharmacy Management System, thereby extending the amount of information a pharmacist can have to use for his patients’ benefit.

The SupplyScape Corp. and Pfizer have entered into an agreement in which the pharmaceutical manufacturer licenses Supply-Scape’s E-Pedigree data management software to enhance patient safety, secure the drug supply channel and meet regulatory compliance requirements.

E-Pedigree provides a secure chain of custody for a prescription drug by creating an electronic record or pedigree to trace each distribution of a given drug, from the first sale by the manufacturer until the final sale to a pharmacy dispensing the drug. Pfizer’s plan to implement E-Pedigree expands its channel security initiatives, which also include Supply-Scape’s RxAuthentication product.

RxAuthentication enables pharmacies and wholesalers to verify the authenticity and status of the serial number on packages of Pfizer’s Viagra at any time.

In an effort to help pharmacies make customer service a priority, Varolii has partnered with some of the top pharmacy chains to drive down the costs of medication fulfillment, increase patient adherence and free up valuable pharmacist time by deploying a range of automated communications.

A few of the applications Varolii offers are: New to Therapy, which educates patients to a new type of therapy and asks them questions to identify if they’re at risk for non-adherence. Refill Reminder and Overdue, Last Fill and Auto Fill run the course of a prescription lifecycle. An Information Therapy calls patients routinely and asks them to enter their weight, which can be a predictor of not taking a medication properly.

Kirby Lester has been involved in prescription filling for almost four decades. The company has created counting machines that have cut down on wait times and increased the accuracy of prescription filling. The company backs all of its products with a guaranteed 99.97 percent accuracy rate in prescription filling compared with a 95 percent human accuracy rate.

The company was bought in September 2005 by Garry Zage and is looking at 2008 as a time of changes with product introduction. It also has announced that it is moving from its original headquarters in Stamford, Conn., to Lake Forest, Ill.