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to an offset pricing contribution. The offset contribution has created a structural arrangement that helps our customers get our solutions at a significant discount. A goal of this positioning has been to give our customers a pathway to packing and checking DAAs on the best technology and at the highest possible margin. On the latter point, we’ve also believed that the better pharmacy operators will align their effort and investments to the activities that deliver the best returns. This has meant our pricing has also been designed to maximise the motivation for a pharmacy to embrace and use the technology. There are few players in the market, so what advice would you give readers looking at options? Yes, competitor dynamics are always interesting. As a business, we’re genuine in trying to offer our customers the market’s best technology on the market’s best commercial terms. While we can’t control people wanting to pay more for less technology, we don’t believe that’s the mindset of the better operators. Given the above, most competitors need to find ways to justify their higher prices, need for service contracts or not being able to include price offsets through spin, rhetoric or even suggesting they somehow have an association with ourselves. All we’d ask is that you cross-check what your told with ourselves. There’s significant excitement around Meditec’s new range of automated packing and checking solutions. Can you bring this to life for our readers? It’s pretty exciting. On the sachet packing side, we’ve refreshed our 208 and 244 canister machines to include the most advanced suite of features ‘as standard’. After the price- offset contribution, these machines are well below $100,000 (plus GST). Our larger range of machines have also been upgraded with new sizes and market-leading features that include integrated checking. On the automated sachet checking side, we’ve expanded our options to now include ‘in-line’ checking. This is where the automated packing and checking happens as part of a single workflow and addresses customer feedback about wanting a single packing/checking process. On the automated blister packing side, we’ve finished field testing what we believe is the market’s largest, most efficient and best priced blister packing solution. Holding 208 canisters and able to pack without a person directly involved, we’re really excited by the value this technology can deliver your readers. If that’s not exciting enough, all this technology works from one software platform. Oh, and that’s not even getting to our dispensing robot, which integrates channel and chaotic technology into a single solution with auto-loading. A complete solution. When speaking about supply pharmacy automation, what are your thoughts on service contracts? Hospitals, yes, retail pharmacies, no. For the latter, we included 24/7 in our consumable price. Given the packing and checking machines are so reliable, loading the customer up with another charge we believe is double-dipping. Again, we’re always trying to limit the amount of money a pharmacy needs to give us, while ensuring they generate the best possible returns using the best possible technology. As Australia is slowly coming out of isolation and business is awakening to a new reality, what lasting impact do you see the pandemic having on community pharmacy? Interesting question. My high-level answer is probably pretty boring, in that I think the most significant, long-term impact will be that the better, well-run businesses will emerge the other side, regroup and get stronger (at the expense of the weaker). I mean, we see it unfold in real time. We saw it happen back when the GFC hit and the federal government offered a range of investment incentives. The stronger pharmacies bought automation and have enjoyed a decade of commercial and operational benefits. These customers then entered the pandemic with a DAA packing business which has helped offset a fall in retail. I was discussing this with a customer the other week, who pretty much said it was their decision a decade ago to get some automation and build a DAA business that was saving them from NEWS IN FOCUS 15 serious financial challenges right now. History is now repeating, with the government having released another investment incentive scheme. I’d think the stronger, more progressive businesses will have the wherewithal to commit, embrace automation, broadening their capabilities and off they go again. As a business, how did you navigate the challenges of COVID-19? What is your main focus now? I could talk on this for hours, but we managed across three critical focuses. The first was to secure our supply chain. With a number of key inputs coming from overseas and given our role in helping pack, check and manage medications in retail and hospital environments, making sure we had a secure supply chain was critical. The second was to reconfirm our support capabilities, given we have solutions in every state, territory and DHB. The third was to ensure we were set up to look after the many urgent calls we received from many of our existing and potentially new customers who saw the role our technology could play in ‘red zones’, makeshift ICUs, pharmacies with reduced workforces, and the list goes on. While on the post-pandemic subject, what do you think will be the challenges and benefits moving forward? As a business that sits across both retail and hospital pharmacy, we had a unique insight into how people were thinking through the demands of the pandemic. While each segment had slightly different drivers, both segments saw automation as a really powerful enabler for helping achieve desired outcomes. For example, we had one state government buy 14 systems. They wanted an easy-to-deploy, state- of-the-art, highly efficient, low-touch system to support a rapid escalation in medication needs. Automation was their answer. In other examples, the suspension of schooling saw staffing drop off a cliff for a number of customers. With the day- to-day work requirement still the same, they needed additional automation to help get it all done with the significantly fewer people. RETAIL PHARMACY • JUL 2020