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Inaugural Distribution Management Award celebrates innovative business process improvements, rrading partner initiatives that benefit the healthcare supply chain.
The Healthcare Distribution Management Assn. presented its first Distribution Management Award to AmerisourceBergen Packaging Group (ABPG) and Pfizer Pharmaceuticals for its Toviaz™ Physician Sample Package Optimization project. The award, presented at the association’s 2010 Distribution Management Conference & Technology Expo in Baltimore, recognizes member companies’ efforts to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of the healthcare supply chain and enhance trading partner relationships.
Pfizer’s Toviaz, a treatment for overactive bladders, was introduced to the market in 2008 using a child-resistant starter pack for physician samples. In partnership with ABPG company Anderson Packaging, the companies worked together to improve upon this design by transitioning to a more comprehensive package design, using ABPG’s IntuiDose™ child-resistant compliance-prompting format. This enhanced design helped Pfizer to deliver the medication more effectively and cost-efficiently. The improvements resulted in substantial savings in the Toviaz physician sample program--and a more patient-friendly product. The new packaging lowered processing and operation costs and led to more efficient transportation and distribution. At the same time, the new packaging promoted medication adherence, provided interactive patient education tools, and helped patients better manage their symptoms and treatment.
“Delivering the right medications to the right patients--and doing it more than nine million times a day--is, by necessity, a team sport,” said Perry Fri, HDMA senior vice president of Industry Relations, Membership and Education, “The collaboration between Pfizer and ABPG exemplifies the benefits of successful trading partner relationships--benefits that ultimately accrue to the patient. We congratulate them on winning the 2010 Distribution Management Award.”
The Distribution Management Award is the successor to HDMA’s iBusiness Solution and Innovation for Success Awards. HDMA presents the award to a member company or companies that demonstrate the value of distribution by developing creative, results-oriented programs and processes in areas ranging from technology and operations to trade and promotional planning that benefit the healthcare supply chain, customers and consumers, and engage in successful trading partner relationships. HDMA is the national association representing primary, full-service healthcare distributors.
