McKesson Completes Acquisition

of McQueary Bros. Drug Company

McKesson Corporation has completed its acquisition of McQueary Bros. Drug Company, a Springfield, Missouri–based regional distributor of pharmaceutical, health, and beauty products to more than 400 independent pharmacies in Missouri, Arkansas, Illinois, Kansas, Oklahoma, Nebraska, and Iowa.

As a result of this acquisition, McQueary has become a wholly-owned subsidiary of McKesson. The purchase price, according to a May news release, was $190 million.

06/23/08

McKesson’s Health Mart, Procter & Gamble Team
Up For Mobile Wellness Tour in Midwest States

McKesson Corporation’s Health Mart recently completed a mobile wellness tour that stopped at key locations throughout the Midwest, including Wichita, Kan. and Madison, Wis.

During the tour, a Health Mart-branded RV visited key community locations — including nursing homes, community centers, churches, and others — providing free blood pressure, bone density, cholesterol, and diabetes screenings. By visiting the locations, Health Mart strove to provide professional health screenings to all interested community members, including those who may not have regular access to health care services.

In sponsorship with Procter & Gamble, the mobile wellness tour complemented in-pharmacy wellness screenings that took place during the same timeframe at more than 20 Health Mart pharmacies in Wisconsin and more than 20 Health Mart pharmacies in Kansas.

With a theme of “Today is the Day,” both the mobile wellness tour and in-pharmacy screenings aimed to encourage and empower community members to take better control of their health. Community members also received complimentary osteoporosis educational materials and Prilosec samples provided by Procter & Gamble. 

On April 12, the final day of the Midwest mobile tour, Health Mart served as a Gold Sponsor of the 2008 American Cancer Society Run/Walk event at Warner Park in Madison, Wis. The event raises money for American Cancer Society research, education, advocacy, and service initiatives.

“Health Mart’s mobile wellness tour and in-store screenings underscore the pharmacy network’s unmatched commitment to delivering best-in-class patient care and to serving as trusted health and wellness centers within communities nationwide,” said Matt Lowe, vice president of Retail Marketing, McKesson U.S. Pharmaceutical. “Every individual can take steps to better control their health, and, by offering key wellness screenings, Health Mart can empower individuals to realize that ‘Today is the Day’ to start this process. Health Mart is proud to partner with Procter & Gamble to offer these valuable screenings to the Wichita and Madison communities, and we look forward to bringing the mobile tour to additional communities across the country.”    

The Health Mart-branded RV visited key community locations providing free blood pressure, bone density, cholesterol, and diabetes screenings.

05/02/08

Cardinal Health to Acquire Enturia

Cardinal Health reports it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire the assets of privately held Enturia Inc. for $490 million. The cash transaction includes Enturia’s leading line of infection prevention products sold under the ChloraPrep brand name.

ChloraPrep brand products are used widely in U.S. hospitals and surgery centers to disinfect the skin before surgical and vascular procedures to help prevent blood stream and surgical site infections, two of the most common types of health care-associated infections (HAIs) among patients.

The acquisition will complement Cardinal Health’s infection prevention offerings by adding a differentiated and proven product line to the company’s medical products and technologies segment.

At the present time, Cardinal Health’s infection prevention offerings range from MedMined electronic infection surveillance services that track and help manage hospital HAI rates, to medical products and surgical apparel that help providers lower infection rates. Cardinal Health plans to accelerate sales of ChloraPrep products to both hospital and alternate-care customers through its U.S. and international sales networks.

Enturia was founded as Medi-Flex Hospital Products in 1985. Over the past two years, the company’s revenue has grown more than 70 percent to approximately $140 million in 2007. The company has about 600 employees in Kansas, Texas and the United Kingdom.

05/02/08

At the AmerisourceBergen Corporation annual meeting of stockholders held recently in Philadelphia, company stockholders re-elected R. David Yost to the board. Also re-elected were Charles H. Cotros and Jane E. Henney.

In addition, Rodney H. Brady retired from the board, having been a member since AmerisourceBergen's inception almost seven years ago and having previously served on the Bergen Brunswig board of directors since 1973.

Yost  has been a member of the board of directors and the company's CEO since AmerisourceBergen's inception. He has also been president of AmerisourceBergen since September 2007, a position he also held from 2001 to 2002. In addition, he serves as a director of Electronic Data Systems Corporation and PharMerica Corporation. Previously, he was chairman and CEO and a director of AmeriSource Health Corporation. He also held a variety of other positions at AmeriSource and its predecessor companies after joining the company in 1974, including president and executive vice president of operations.  

Cotros has been a member of the board of directors since 2002. He was interim chairman and CEO of Allied Waste Industries Inc. from October 2004 to May 2005 and has been a director of Allied since July 2004. Previously, he served as chairman and CEO of Sysco Corporation from 2000 to 2002, and held a variety of positions at Sysco, including COO and president.

Henney also serves as a director of AstraZeneca PLC and CIGNA Corporation. She is a professor at the College of Medicine, University of Cincinnati, having served as senior vice president and provost for Health Affairs at the University of Cincinnati from 2003 to January 2008. She previously was senior Scholar in Residence at the Association of Academic Health Centers in Washington, D.C. from 2001 to 2003. From 1998 to 2001, she was commissioner of food and drugs at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, where she served as deputy commissioner of operations from 1992 to 1994.

The AmerisourceBergen Board of Directors is comprised of eight members.

05/02/08

Cardinal Health has announced the appointment of former acting deputy U.S. Attorney General Craig S. Morford as the company’s chief compliance officer, a newly expanded position.

Morford  has had a distinguished career of more than 20 years in public service with the Department of Justice, including serving as U.S. attorney in Detroit and Nashville. In 2007, he was appointed by President Bush as acting deputy attorney general, the second highest ranking official in the Department of Justice, overseeing more than 100,000 employees including 93 U.S. attorney offices, and agencies that include the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He joined Cardinal Health on May 5.

At Cardinal Health, Morford will be responsible for ensuring compliance with internal policies and external regulations that govern the company’s products, services and operations. This newly expanded role will focus on regulatory, environmental health and safety compliance, as well as ethics and enterprise risk management. He will report jointly to R. Kerry Clark, chairman and CEO of Cardinal Health, and the chair of the audit committee of the company’s board of directors.

Also at Cardinal, Michael C. Kaufmann has been named group president of the company’s Healthcare Supply Chain Services Pharmaceutical Segment. He will continue to report to George S. Barrett, vice chairman of Cardinal Health and CEO of the company’s Healthcare Supply Chain Services sector. Kaufmann replaces Scott A. Storrer, who left the company in March.

In his new role, Kaufmann will be responsible for Cardinal Health’s largest business, which provides logistics services to pharmaceutical manufacturers, distributes approximately one-third of all medicine prescribed in the United States to hospitals, pharmacies and other providers of care, operates the nation’s leading network of specialized nuclear pharmacies and is the largest franchisor of pharmacies in the United States.

Kaufmann was most recently responsible for the turnaround of Cardinal Health’s medical supply chain business and has spent the majority of his 17-year career with the company in senior operational, sales and finance roles within the pharmaceutical business. He was instrumental in strengthening financial performance within pharmaceutical distribution by leading the company’s transition to a fee-based service model. 

The company said it does not intend to fill the position Kaufmann formerly held in the medical supply chain business at this time and instead will have those senior leaders report directly to Barrett.

05/02/08