National Post Covers PCAS Unveiling at Sunnybrook

What do foreign exchange executives do when they hang up their trading skills?

If you are David Gibbins, the managing director and global head of foreign exchange and commodity derivatives for RBC Capital Markets before retiring in 2003, you invest in and join the board of PCA Services Inc., an Oakville, Ont.-based company that has developed the software and the hardware to dispense and manage medicines required by patients.

“I have always been interested in technology,” said Gibbins, adding a decade back he helped develop the software for the country’s first Internet trading platform. “With our product we have the fulfillment of the script being brought much closer to where the script is issued, which brings time and cost savings to all the parties. This is disruptive technology for the pharmacies, but it is great for the consumer. It is a convenience play,” he said, noting the system is safer than the normal way in which prescriptions are filled.

PCA, which also developed the technology-intensive Direct Care Pharmacy, will celebrate a major milestone today with the official launch of its first facility at Toronto’s Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Indeed, two machines will be unveiled. The machines, about twice as large as an average bank ATM, come with one major difference: the same box that dispenses the medicines allows patients to communicate directly with a pharmacist, one of seven employed by the company.

The box has two screens, one of which allows the patient to talk to the pharmacist, who is based at the company’s pharmacy in suburban Toronto. In fact, the patient has to talk to the off-site pharmacist, who controls the machine, for the process to work. As part of the checks and balances, there are at least five cameras in the dispensing machine and almost a dozen software programs that ensure the prescription being filled is the proper one. There are also checks that occur before the 200 or so different medicines are put into the machine. Just like an ATM, it’s what behind the screen that’s key to the process.

PCA Services, home to 40 employees, was founded by Don Waugh and Peter Suma, two veterans of the world of venture capital. The two have raised more than $9-million for their project and have spent more than two years developing the technology.

“It’s a system that is safe, and has the potential to raise accessibility to the health care system,” Suma said. “Our platform would, at scale, reduce the cost of pharmacy distribution and allow pharmacists to spend more time counselling their patients.”

PCA is unveiling its technology at an opportune time. In Ontario, at least, there are plans to allow pharmacists to prescribe certain medicines, a practice that occurs elsewhere. As well, the Competition Bureau recently reported that the prescription drug system is more expensive than it should be. The bureau says $800-million a year could be saved from the nation’s health care bill if changes were made to the way generic drugs are paid for. It found the cost savings of generics don’t reach consumers largely because of the design of public and private drug plans, which allow competitive rebates, averaging 40%, to be provided to pharmacies by manufacturers, but provide little incentive for pharmacies to pass these savings on to plan sponsors.

bcritchley@nationalpost.com