The agreement also includes incentive payments based on AutoMed achieving
earnings targets over the next two-and-a-half years. AutoMed, which is
headquartered in the Chicago area and privately held, anticipates revenues of
over $60 million in calendar year 2002. AmerisourceBergen expects the purchase
to be slightly accretive immediately upon completion of the transaction and
anticipates closing the transaction in late summer.
"This acquisition enhances our position in the pharmaceutical supply chain by
delivering a pharmacy automation solution that all our customers can use to
improve their businesses," said R. David Yost, AmerisourceBergen's President and
Chief Executive Officer. "From small community pharmacies and drugstore chains
to hospital systems and long-term care facilities, AutoMed has an automation
solution for every size and type of pharmacy."
"AutoMed is uniquely positioned in the pharmacy automation marketplace.
Combining software, equipment and workflow design, AutoMed has the only truly
integrated pharmacy automation solution," said Kurt J. Hilzinger,
AmerisourceBergen's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. "With
AutoMed, our customers can reduce the cost of drug dispensing, improve
dispensing accuracy and address staffing pressures."
"Joining AmerisourceBergen gives us the platform and resources to rapidly grow
this business," said Duane S. Chudy, AutoMed's President. "With only about 10
percent of retail pharmacies automated and less than half of outpatient hospital
pharmacies using automation, we are very excited about the market opportunities
that are ahead for us and our customers as part of AmerisourceBergen."
Using modular equipment and interfacing software, AutoMed's dispensing solutions
focus on optimizing the workflow within any pharmacy. The company provides
equipment and software that count and dispense oral solid pharmaceuticals as
well as single unit ready-to-label items such as ointments and inhalers. These
modular dispensing units come in a variety of sizes, include bar-coding
capability, and in larger units can also cap the patient container or vial in a
patented process and attach the printed prescription label. AutoMed software is
capable of interfacing with all pharmacy software systems, and the company
supports all of its units with a service contract and the packaging and paper
consumables used in the equipment.
For retail pharmacies, AutoMed can automate over 80 percent of all prescriptions
entering a pharmacy, improving efficiency by reducing costs, increasing
prescription turn-around times, and maintaining staffing levels as prescriptions
grow. The company has counting solutions small enough to fit on a countertop,
and systems that can fill more than 50,000 prescriptions a day. For example, a
mid-size unit accurately stores, counts and dispenses up to 64 different oral
solid medications, continuously manages inventory, stages up to nine pre-counted
prescriptions and takes up only five square feet. Bar coding and scanning also
ensure greater accuracy in dispensing the prescriptions.
In the hospital and long-term care markets, where customers are focused on
reducing costs, improving dispensing accuracy, and relieving staffing pressures,
AutoMed solutions provide bar-coded, unit-dose dispensing that interfaces with
bedside charting systems, and faster, more exact in-pharmacy dispensing. In
hospitals, AutoMed systems package medications for both traditional cart
distribution as well as automated point-of-use storage and distribution systems.
In long-term care, AutoMed provides compliance packaging for both nursing home
and assisted living environments, delivering prescriptions in packets that
organize medications in the sequence and amounts that each patient should take
them.
Mail order operations also use AutoMed workflow design and equipment for
high-speed, automated packaging and labeling of prescriptions.
In addition, large central fill operations, such as the new Sacramento, Calif.,
facility run jointly by AmerisourceBergen and Longs Drugs, use AutoMed workflow
designs and equipment to rapidly and accurately fill prescriptions for numerous
pharmacies at a central location.
Concluded Yost, "Since the merger that created AmerisourceBergen, we have stated
our commitment to use our scale and resources to help our customers run their
businesses better. The AutoMed acquisition supports that commitment. We continue
to be focused solely on the pharmaceutical supply channel."
About AmerisourceBergen
About AutoMed
(c) Copyright 2002 AmerisourceBergen Corporation.
CONTACT: AmerisourceBergen Corporation
Michael N. Kilpatric, 610/727-7118
[email protected]