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MANILA – Rising demand for patient-specific medicines makes officials of a local specialty compounding pharmacy optimistic for its operations amidst the pandemic.
In a virtual briefing on Wednesday, Apotheca Integrative Pharmacy Marketing Manager Benjamin Topacio said the company benefited from its combination vitamin, specifically composed of Vitamin C, D3, and Zinc.
He believes that the company is the first in the country to formulate this combination vitamin during the pandemic.
“This actually helped the company during the times of crisis or in times of pandemic increase its performance, increase its sales, profit and revenue,” he said.
Drug compounding is a process of mixing ingredients to tailor fit a patient’s specific needs be it in the form of capsules, liquid, or lozenges.
Topacio said the company started in 2021 the conduct of webinars among doctors to inform them of the company’s offerings that would tailor-fit the physicians’ practice and provide proper health care for their patients.
He said Apotheca, which was incepted in 2012 and started operations in 2014, has also started hiring members of its sales team to widen awareness on drug compounding and its benefits.
He added that the big pharmaceutical companies are not their competitors because their products are based on doctors’ medication that are specific for a patient.
During the same briefing, Apotheca Managing Director Sophia Lista said the global compounded medication industry is growing and is seen to expand by around 6 percent in the next six years after posting around USD10.3 billion revenues in the past six years.
“Parallel with the growth of the local industry, pharmacy industry, and the global compounding markets it really encourages us to continue striving for quality and improvements overall in any direction for us," she said.
She said there are only four compounding pharmacies in the country out of the around 40,000 drugstores registered with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
“So you can see right away that there’s a lot of potential for us compounders in this very small space,” she said.
She said the current pandemic is fueling consumer behavior towards a redesign on the health ecosystem “as health consciousness continues to grow, and access to quality products becomes key.” (PNA)
