Pharmacy robots fill Rx shortages

In the past decade, the number of prescriptions filled each year has increased by 61 percent. During the same period, the supply of pharmacists to dispense them has risen by just 8 percent, according to industry sources.

With the gap only expected to widen, most pharmacies are searching for ways to handle the increasing workload while reducing medication errors and keeping patient waiting times to a minimum.

Parata Systems of Morrisville, N.C., hopes its automated pharmacy robots -- which can dispense, cap, label and alphabetically sort as many as 240 prescriptions an hour -- will be a big part of the solution.

Pharmacy automation isn't new. And there are at least a half- dozen major players targeting the same market -- retail pharmacies of all sizes -- that Parata has set its sights on. But Jess Eberdt, the company's president and chief executive, likes Parata's chances.

At 12 square feet, Parata's dispensing unit is the smallest on the market. In drugstores, that's a major selling point.

Parata's machine is also fast. At peak capacity, the company's robot turns out filled prescriptions twice as fast as its closest competitors, Eberdt said.

The company is entering the market while automation is high on many pharmacies' to-do lists. Automatic dispensing units, which count pills into bottles but don't cap or label them, and robots such as Parata's, which fill, cap, label and sort, are both catching pharmacists' interest.

Parata's machine is a long, slim block fitted with 252 individual cells to hold pills. When a prescription is ordered, a computer signals the machine to open a particular cell and a forced-air system maneuvers the medicine into a bottle. The robot attaches a cap, prints and affixes a label and then sorts the bottle by the patient's last name into a tray at the end of the unit.

Pharmacists and pharmacy technicians must monitor the machine to refill cells when they get low. The system has checks and balances to ensure that the right pill goes to the right patient. Pharmacists who use the machines double-check, for an extra measure of safety.

Pete Klein, a pharmacist and Parata's vice president for industry relations, said pharmacies have held back on putting robots in their stores because of the large size and slower speed of existing technology. "We really set out to design the machine that fixes all the industry's complaints," he said. Parata's price might make its system all the more appealing: Its unit retails for about $185,000, while some rivals' products range up to about $270,000 a unit.

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