There is fascinating news today from Pfizer, who have decided to bypass the wholesalers in Australia and market directly to community pharmacies. To quote,
“In order to develop stronger partnerships with pharmacists and better adapt to the changing environment, we have decided that a dedicated field force with specific pharmacy experience and a direct distribution model for all our prescription medicines sold into community pharmacy are critical ,” explained Pfizer Australia Managing Director, Mr John Latham.
Rx wholesaling is generally a low-margin, high volume business. A move like this could enable Pfizer to capture some of that margin (especially with branded generics and generic products). Interestingly, Pfizer utilized DHL for the physical distribution and logistics. It will be interesting to see if Pfizer identifies other territories in which it can leverage external logistics and build a community pharmacy sales force and still capture incremental margins.