Pharmacy Technology

NEW YORK — Consumers see smart phones as future personal, coupon-clipping shopper assistants, a global survey released Monday by Accenture found. According to the survey, 79% of smart-phone users would find it useful to download money-off coupons to their phones, and 73% of those shoppers would be receptive to being pinged with instant money-off coupons as they passed by an item in a store.

IRVINGTON, N.Y. — Prestige Brands Holdings on Thursday named Ron Lombardi its new CFO, effective Dec. 6. The position had been vacated by the retirement of Pete Anderson.

“[Lombardi] is a results-oriented financial professional whose extensive background in business development, acquisitions and divestitures, and debt and equity structuring will serve Prestige well as we move into our next phase of growth following our recent acquisition of Blacksmith Brands,” stated Matthew Mannelly, Prestige president and CEO.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT — Pharmacy advocates are using every tool they can to spread the message that pharmacists bring a lot more than prescription services to the healthcare table. So how about a 341-ft. digital billboard looming above Times Square?

FORT WORTH, Texas — Integrated pharmacy systems provider PDX and Health Market Science, a leading source for health provider data and solutions, have teamed up to improve the accuracy and safety of the prescription verification process.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT — The forward-looking vision employed by Gov. Jay Nixon in exploring “next steps” in fighting methamphetamine abuse before even the last step has been put into place and enacted is, in a matter of speaking, extremely short-sighted. It doesn’t even make fiscal sense, because the National Precursor Log Exchange will do more to curb many of the costs associated with fighting meth addicts without conversely increasing the costs associated with fighting a cold.

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — Community pharmacists still are among the nation’s most trusted professionals.

SARASOTA, Fla. — The Specialty Pharmacy Nursing Network has entered a partnership with ViroPharma’s CinryzeSolutions support program, a training and monitoring program for patients using ViroPharma’s Cinryze (C1 esterase inhibitor [human]) who wish to administer the drug themselves.

Cinryze is a drug administered via infusion for the treatment of hereditary angioedema, and the partnership will allow patients to receive training and follow-up support from SPNN nurses, as well as direction from their physicians.

WHITESTONE, N.Y. — Fresh from securing a deal to sell his company to Cardinal Health for $1.3 billion, Kinray owner, president and CEO Stewart Rahr is turning more attention to his crusade to promote his friend Donald Trump as a candidate for president in 2012.