ARLINGTON, Va. — A new report from the Food Marketing Institute here shows the supermarket pharmacy business to be healthy, and growing in services and tie-in opportunities. Among other findings, “Supermarket Pharmacy Trends 2008” reports that key benchmarks are up significantly from 2002 to 2007, including median number of prescriptions filled per day, median percentage of prescription sales from generic drugs, media percentage of prescription sales to total store sales, and median of the gross margin for the pharmacy department. Additionally, the study said 92.7% of supermarket pharmacies will be ready for e-prescribing by the end of the year, while nearly half offer Medication Therapy Management in either all or some stores, with another third planning to implement it over the next year. “What is most significant [about the report] is that in today’s volatile marketplace, whether it is competition from other retail pharmacy providers, mail-order providers, or competition to keep the overall health care costs down, supermarket pharmacies continue to post strong and steady performance figures,” said Cathy Polley, FMI’s vice president of pharmacy services. “It shows that pharmacy in the grocery industry is healthy and continuing to show uptrends in sales, while also showing some improvements in efficiencies,” said Randy Heiser, vice president, pharmacy, Giant Eagle, Pittsburgh. Heiser is the immediate past chair of the FMI Pharmacy Services Committee.

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