Pharmacy News: Struggle Continues as House Considers ND Pharmacy Ownership Bill

Struggle Continues as House Considers ND Pharmacy Ownership Bill

Once again, legislators are considering a bill that would change the law restricting pharmacy ownership. It would make many prescriptions much more affordable, but critics say it would come at a cost. A similar effort failed two years ago, and both sides are going at it again.

Pharmacists from all over the state say the legislation puts their livelihoods at risk, but big chain retailers say a little competition helps consumers.

Large retailers like Wal-Mart and Target can`t operate a pharmacy in North Dakota. That`s because state law says pharmacies must have majority owners who are licensed pharmacists in the state.

The House Industry Business and Labor Committee is considering a bill that would loosen the law and allow large retailers to open up shop.

Local pharmacists don`t want the legislation to pass, and they`re banding together.

“It is scary. Your smaller communities, your rural communities, some of them will be forced out. There`s only a certain number of prescriptions to fill,” said pharmacy owner Kim Essler.

But advocates say everyone would win, especially consumers.

“Fundamentally, it`s a restriction of trade,” said hospital pharmacist Joan Johnson. “Competition is good for consumers and it`s just wrong to restrict trade in any way. Just because something is a chain, doesn`t mean it`s bad. And I think pharmacists should have a choice of where they want to work.”

Some hospital pharmacists support the legislation. They say the law under serves some patients, and they use home infusion as an example. That`s when a patient can take medication at home, instead of lying in a bed for a period of time.

They say rural areas often don`t have medications readily available, leaving patients no choice but to travel long distances or use mail order.

Advocates say North Dakota is the only state in the country where large retailers can`t operate a pharmacy, and that`s got to change. Opponents say no way, because customers would lose out in the end.

“If the law changed and things got where I couldn`t survive in business, I think there`s still a pharmacist shortage, I`d be able to find a job, go somewhere else,” said Essler.

Opponents say it would be difficult to compete with large retailers deep pockets. Advocates claim opponents fears of being pushed out of business are unfounded.

Down To Business: The New Reality Of Tech Industry Consolidation

Amid a recovering economy, technology merger and acquisition activity took off in 2010, as the number of deals and total deal value hit their highest levels since 2007, according to a detailed analysis released this month by Ernst & Young. The mobile, social, cloud computing, storage, security, and analytics segments drove much of that activity, as did healthcare and clean energy.

A sign of the times: Companies whose core business isn’t technology accounted for 15 percent of tech acquisition value in 2010, up from 8 percent in 2009, according to the Ernst & Young report. In the fourth quarter, for instance, the two largest health IT deals involved two “non-technology” companies: pharmacy benefits manager Medco’s $730 million acquisition of United BioSource, a developer of Web and voice response systems, and iinsurer Aetna’s $500 million purchase of Medicity, a maker of health information exchange technology.

In fact, the distinction between tech and non-tech companies is starting to become artificial. Visa plunked down $1.83 billion for CyberSource, a payment management software company, in the 10th largest tech acquisition of the year. Is Visa a financial services company heavily dependent on technology, or is it a technology company that delivers financial services? Regardless of the semantics, expect this trend to accelerate in 2011.

The number of technology M&A deals rose 41 percent in 2010 compared with the year earlier, to 2,658, the largest number since the 3,345 deals done in pre-recession 2007, according to Ernst & Young. The total value of tech deals in 2010 increased 26 percent year over year, to $119 billion, though the average value per deal, $131 million, was down 10 percent–owing to more but smaller deals overall. Private equity firms accounted for $19.7 billion of that $119 billion in total deal value, more than double the $9.8 billion PE firms spent on tech acquisitions in 2009. Last year also saw a surge in cross-border tech M&As. They accounted for 41 percent of total deal value in 2010, compared with 25 percent in 2009.

Twenty-six technology M&A deals topped the $1 billion mark. Among the biggest ones were Intel’s $7.29 billion deal for McAfee (security), SAP’s $5.65 acquisition of Sybase (analytics, mobile Integration), NTT’s $3.23 billion acquisition of Dimension Data (IT infrastructure services), EMC’s $2.25 billion acquisition of Isilon Systems (storage), Attachmate’s $2.14 billion deal for Novell (infrastructure software), and Hewlett-Packard’s $2.07 billion acquisition of 3Par (storage). Two private equity deals made the top 10: the Advent International and Bain Capital deal for most of RBS Worldpay (a unit of Royal Bank of Scotland) and Carlyle Group’s $2.98 billion acquisition of CommScope (carrier infrastructure).

Google was the most prodigious tech acquirer in 2010, disclosing 28 deals in social networking, e-commerce, document collaboration, mobile video, gaming, payments, and other areas, according to Ernst & Young. The likes of IBM and Cisco have taken a similar tack over the years–buying small, innovative companies as de facto R&D arms rather than developing all their own technologies from scratch.

The fact that Google is returning co-founder Larry Page to the CEO chair–bumping CEO Eric Schmidt up to executive chairman come April–is an indication that Google is revving up its internal R&D and innovation engine after years of mostly acquiring companies for that purpose. (As an important aside, the number of technology company initial public offerings more than tripled in 2010, to 180, indicating that successful innovators have other options besides getting acquired.)

Nonetheless, expect the pace of industry consolidation to quicken in 2011 as companies with new-found cash expand into new technology, industry, and geographic markets and augment existing ones. Leading the way will be the usual suspects: IBM, Oracle, EMC, Microsoft, Dell, EMC, CA, Cisco, and HP (which just announced it’s acquiring analytics specialist Vertica). But expect non-traditional players like Google and Facebook, as well as those from outside the industry, to shake things up as well.