Sep 21, 2008

Independent pharmacies use different techniques to competeBy Chris StarrsOnlineAthens.com

Athens, GA — When Bill Horton graduated from the University of Georgia’s College of Pharmacy in 1959, there were no less than eight independent pharmacies on Clayton Street in downtown Athens.

“There’s Horton’s, which my father started in 1947, and there was Crowe’s, which my father started in 1937,” recalled Horton, who began working for his father at the age of 11 and “has never had another job” that wasn’t pharmacy-related.

“Hammet’s and Patrick’s were right across the street from each other, and Edward’s Prescription Lab was across from what we now know as the Fred Building. Moon Winn was across the street from Heery’s. There was also Citizen’s Pharmacy and Smith Drug Store, which was where BB&T is now.”

There were others, like C&D Pharmacy (for Carswell & Dooley), not far from Athens Regional Medical Center; Lyons Pharmacy, which was located in the Lyons Apartment Building on Lumpkin Street near UGA; Smith Pharmacy on Broad Street; and Epp’s Pharmacy in the Gateway Shopping Center.

Through the years, most of the pharmacies closed or moved on, and their spots in the health care community were succeeded by chain drug stores like CVS, Walgreens, Eckerd and Rite-Aid and “big-box” retailers like Wal-Mart and a number of grocery stores. But a number of independent pharmacies remain in the Athens area, doing all they can to survive – and even thrive – in a highly competitive marketplace.

And the landscape looks even more troublesome for the little guy.

According to the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, America is home to more than 22,029 traditional chain drug stores, 9,287 supermarket pharmacies and 7,662 mass-merchant pharmacies.

Such businesses fill 70 percent of the 3.5 billion prescriptions written in the United States each year. At the same time, more than 1,000 independent pharmacies have closed since 2006, said AARP.org.

Most of the pharmacy owners interviewed for this report said their primary concern isn’t competition from other independents or even the “big-box” stores, but getting reimbursed by pharmacy benefit managers (or PBMs), which oversee drug benefit programs for employers and insurance companies.

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