Letter from the CEO

After helping to found and providing leadership to UPNI for 15 years, I left the CEO position at the end of 2009.  I was subsequently appointed CEO of ICP by its Board of Directors in January of 2009.

Today, ICP exists to provide support services for two major projects; the GNP/ICP Scholarship Golf Classic and Burt’s Pharmacy LLC.

The Golf Classic is in its 9th year.  It has raised $1,200,000 for scholarships, continuing education and other services that benefit independent community pharmacies.  It has also funded the creation of $50,000 worth of endowment to the USC School of Pharmacy and the Western University College of Pharmacy.

The founding principle for the tournament was and continues to be to foster the development and growth of the next generation of independent community pharmacy owners.  Our scholarships are given to students who exhibit the desire, passion, drive and will to pursue a professional career in community pharmacy ownership.  After 8 years, we have an alumni group of more than 80 scholarship recipients, many of whom have already entered into ownership positions and many more who are coming back to us for help and support in assuming their first ownership position.  It is truly gratifying to see this growth.

ICP has partnered with Good Neighbor Pharmacy and AmerisourceBergen to create Burt’s Pharmacy.  Burt’s Pharmacy is a proof of concept for an idea to address a fundamental threat to the future of independent community pharmacy.  The threat is the cannibalization of independent community practice sites by large chain pharmacy companies.  When pharmacy owners reach retirement age and want to sell their practices, in the absence of an immediate buyer, they often resort to selling their prescription files to a chain.  As a result their practice sites disappear forever.  This is bad for the profession, bad for the health care system and bad for patients.  It is ICP’s hope that the Burt’s Pharmacy project will lay the foundation for the creation of an alternative for retiring owners and recent graduates wishing to buy a pharmacy practice.  The alternative would be a Holding Company that would enter the market to buy, manage and sell pharmacies in a time frame that would meet the needs of both sellers and buyers and obviate the expedient of selling out to a chain.
Both of these projects address very serious issues/threats to the future of independent community pharmacy.  ICP is pursuing its mission with its involvement and support of these two very important initiatives.