Page 39 - Retail Pharmacy November/Decemeber 2020

An extraordinary year in review Carl Gibson, CEO, Complementary Medicines Australia This year has been one like no other, for many reasons. Complementary Medicines Australia (CMA) delivered a five-year strategy ahead of schedule. The year kicked off with Member Roadshows to collate opinions and input for the development of CMA’s new strategy ‘Healthy people healthy future 2020-2025’. In the face of a once-in-a-century pandemic, our industry was classified as ‘essential’ to keep factories producing therapeutic products and retail and health food stores open to provide excellent and essential healthcare advice. Our members pivoted to producing personal protective equipment, hospital- grade disinfectant, and sanitisers. I’m so proud that our industry rose to the challenge and continues to make a vital and essential contribution to the challenge of Covid-19. During 2020, CMA continued to build and develop our relationship with key stakeholders, including the Pharmacy Guild, Direct Selling Australia, the New year, new College Chris Owen, President, Australasian College of Pharmacy The Australian College of Pharmacy has more than 40 years’ experience educating pharmacists and pharmacy industry professionals in clinical and business fields. Our aims are to offer value and quality education to our members and contribute to advancement of the profession. However, the vast quantities of free Continuing Professional Development (CPD) available from many different providers has made continuing to offer a high quality standard difficult. The College board wanted to ensure the College continued to do what we do best, which is provide quality education at an affordable price. So, subsequent to a membership vote in late 2019, the Queensland Branch of the Pharmacy Guild of Australia became the single Australian Made campaign, Austrade, GoVita, practitioner associations, the practitioner community and many more. We reinvigorated the Friends of Complementary Medicines, an enthusiastic and dedicated team of third-party advocates promoting and supporting complementary medicines. Australian complementary medicines continue to lead the world in terms of high quality, safety, and efficacy. The ‘CMA Industry Audit &Trends 2020’ report demonstrated that our industry is an important part of the Australian economy, generating $5.6 billion in sales revenue. Our vitamin and dietary supplements category has grown by 55 per cent from 2014 to 2019. Export markets continue to go from strength to strength, growing from $175 million in 2014 to $1.1 billion export value in 2019. CMA continues to support existing export markets and seek new ones for our quality products. We hosted delegations from China, Indonesia and India. We participated in the Austrade delegation to India, strengthening our relationships, securing preferential tariffs, and connecting with online platform Amazon to open ecommerce in India. The development of policy in Australia is essential to support the complementary medicines industry, shareholder of the new Australasian College of Pharmacy in 2020, ensuring the financial viability of the College into the future. The Covid-19 pandemic certainly led to rapid, monumental changes in pharmacy practice, requiring pharmacists and pharmacy businesses to pivot and innovate. In April 2020, the Pharmacy Board of Australia (PBA) identified that pharmacists were set for a busy time during the pandemic and that they would need to educate themselves about the virus and how it may affect their patients and staff. The PBA considered that pharmacists’ preferred means of accessing CPD activities may be interrupted. This came to fruition with the cancellation of APP, Australia’s largest pharmacy conference, which was converted into a highly successful online conference almost overnight. The PBA subsequently announced that it wouldn’t act against pharmacists not meeting CPD requirements during the registration period, due to a Covid-19 emergency. However, this ANNUAL REPORT 37 supporting our manufacturers and cutting red tape so we can remain competitive. CMA was proud to host a parliamentary breakfast in federal parliament in February with our guest of honour, Health Minister Greg Hunt. Thank you to all who attended and to Herbalife for supporting and sponsoring the ‘Healthy Breakfast’ event. CMA proudly won the highly coveted 2019 Association of the Year awarded by the Associations Forum. The award recognised overall excellence with demonstrated ability to influence government decision-making, deliver world-class conferences and exhibitions, and publish accurate and important market intelligence. I was proud to accept the award in front of more than 500 stakeholders from Australia’s not- for-profit sector at a gala dinner held in federal parliament. This superb achievement is testament to the dedication of our team and their commitment to the complementary medicines industry in Australia. Thank you to the industry for the valuable and essential services you provide to the community each day. We genuinely hope that it won’t be too much longer before we can all meet again, share our stories, and renew friendships. didn’t slow pharmacists’ engagement with CPD. It led to a change in the way they consumed content. With all the domestic and international pharmacy conferences for 2020 cancelled, and travel significantly curtailed, it meant pharmacists searched for digital education content like never before. The College seamlessly facilitated digital education via its online learning management system. It also delivered two ground-breaking webinars on the Oxford University and University of Queensland Covid vaccines, which attracted more than 1000 and more than 500 registrants, respectively. The College plans to continue to innovate in digital education with improvements to its online offer that will benefit members into the future. The College was proud to elevate two members to Fellow of the Australasian College of Pharmacy: Daryll Knowles, Chief Scientific Officer and owner of Australian Custom Pharmaceuticals, and Dr Alian Alrasheedy, Dean, Unaizah College of Pharmacy, Qassim RETAIL PHARMACY • NOV/DEC 2020