Content about Insights and Perspectives

NEW YORK Perrigo’s latest quarterly report underscores the relatively high expectations around cough-cold-flu this year because of the novel H1N1 virus.

More importantly, Perrigo has identified a number of very-large brands that will be facing store brand competition in the coming year — MiraLax, Mucinex and Monistat-1. That’s great news for retailers. Private label offerings not only mean greater margins, but today’s economy continues to drive more consumers toward store brand trials.

NEW YORK Walmart isn’t letting the lack of a physical presence in select Midwestern and Northeastern markets hinder its ability to offer prescription drugs, thanks to the expansion of a mail-order program begun earlier this year in Michigan. The program enables customers to receive a 90-day supply of approximately 300 generics for $10 via free mail delivery, or any of approximately 3,000 other pharmaceuticals that the company offers.

NEW YORK One of the modules included in Cardinal Health’s myPharmacyTrainer online training site is: “How to market vitamins and herbal supplements.”

NEW YORK The fact of the matter is the average person is inundated with more than 3,000 messages each day, and as a result has gotten pretty good at tuning most of those messages out. So breaking through that clutter with a Hollywood star that may make fans pause for even a second around an important healthcare message is an accomplishment in and of itself.

NEW YORK Specialty pharmacies Commcare Pharmacy and Diplomat Specialty Pharmacy have earned the respective 235th and 374th places on Inc. magazine’s list of the 500 fastest-growing private companies in the United States.

This goes to show how rapidly the specialty pharmacy industry has grown thanks to its focus on complex illnesses and medication regimens that traditional pharmacies are mostly unable to support, growing 8.8% last year, compared to 4.4% for traditional pharmacies, while specialty drugs had nearly $60 billion in U.S. sales.

NEW YORK It’s a study that probably couldn’t have come at a better time given the recent recall in this space, except you may not yet have heard of the zinc study. That’s because for all the major news media outlets that quickly picked up on Matrixx’s recall a few months back on a pair of Zicam products, not one of them picked up on this news — news that not only supports the efficacy of zinc-based products, but also provides a little insight into how it may work.

NEW YORK It was one of those clear “ah-ha!” moments that don’t come around nearly often enough.

In recent days, the Pentagon affirmed what the retail pharmacy industry has been saying all along: that leveling the playing field between community pharmacies and big, impersonal mail-order prescription outlets does more than just expand freedom of choice for military health plan beneficiaries, and eliminate a competitive disadvantage for drug retailers. It also saves the taxpayers money.

NEW YORK The objective here is closing down clandestine methamphetamine labs. The question is: Who is going to bear the cost? And the answer, ultimately, is the consumer.

It seems that one of the primary reasons behind legislation like this, which is also under consideration by the California state legislature as well as several local municipalities throughout Missouri, is cost shifting.

NEW YORK NBTY CEO Harvey Kamil’s appearance on the “Fox Business Morning C-Suite Sit-Down” is good news for the industry on a couple of levels.

NEW YORK Today’s novel H1N1 news scare may very well turn out to be a “boy who cried SARS” scenario, in which all the news hype drives frenzied concern through the American consciousness but never culminates into a sharp rise in demand of products — antivirals, N-95 facemasks, hand sanitizers — potentially leaving suppliers and retailers with more inventory than they know what to do with.

NEW YORK It’s simply not good enough to stock a company’s “better mousetrap” on a store shelf, especially in a commodity category like multivitamins, and expect that product to move off the shelf with any degree of regularity. There is a need to develop an emotional relationship with the consumer — a relationship that creates a more loyal shopper with a greater investment in the brand.

NEW YORK There are a couple of items of note with Ross’ announcement. First is the value of the pharmacist. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll released last week found that almost half of Americans are putting off healthcare costs, with 33% of Americans reporting that they’re replacing a possible doctor’s office visit with a trip to the pharmacy to purchase an over-the-counter solution.