Medical supplier is pack leader
Sean Gallagher meets owners of small and medium-sized businesses and shares the lessons they’ve learnt in building their companies
SET up in 2011 by pharmacist Brian O’Donoghue, Virginia Medical Supplies manufactures and distributes blister packs that make it easy for patients to take the right doses of the right medicines at the right time. Located in Virginia in Co Cavan, the company employs 15 staff and has an annual turnover of more than €2.8m.
“Our core business includes the manufacture of a range of blister packs which dispensing pharmacists can populate with the number and type of tablets a patient is due to take each day. Branded as Nu-Life, each pack contains a number of different pods depending on the number of times a day tablets are to be taken and are colour coded to identify different days of the week,” says Brian.
Each pack comes complete with a sheet with the name and description of each drug in lay person’s language as well as a picture of each drug.
This is so patients have a better understanding of what they are taking and why — which in turn helps ensure a higher level of compliance with what has been prescribed.
“Medication non-adherence and non-compliance, where patients take too little or too much medication — or worse still take the wrong medication — has become a growing concern for clinicians, healthcare systems, and governments around the world because of the potential negative effects on both individual patient health outcomes as well as health service budgets,” says Brian.
“Recent data indicates that medication non-adherence is costing EU governments an estimated €125bn a year as well as contributing to the premature death of nearly 200,000 Europeans annually,” he adds. Brian demonstrates how his blister packs are uniquely resealable. In the event that a patient, for example, experiences an increase in their blood pressure during a course of medication and some or all of their medication needs to be increased or changed, then the pharmacist can take off the seal of the weekly blister pack, make the required changes to the medications and then reseal the pack.
“In the past, packs could not be resealed and all the medication ended up getting thrown out. Our packs eliminate this costly wastage” he insists. A further design feature includes a range of packs with removable pods enabling a patient remove a day or two days dosage if they are travelling, for example, rather than taking their full week’s supply.
“Our blister packs are also very beneficial in the event that a patient ends up in hospital or in a nursing home in the case of the elderly.
“They simply take the blister pack with them so that the nurses or doctors can immediately understand what medication they are on. In the past, patients would often arrive to the hospital with a biscuit tin full of different tablets making it difficult for the medical team to know what they had been prescribed,” says Brian.
In addition to blister packs, the company has also developed a cloud-based software platform which allows pharmacists and doctors as well as nursing home and hospital staff to engage more effectively in a patient’s care.
“We will also soon be launching our new Nursing Home Mobile App which will help revolutionise medication administration in nursing homes. This will not only ensure each patient receives the correct dosage but will enhance efficiency, productivity and reporting within the entire system,” says Brian.
“What makes our products so effective and relevant is that they have been developed based on extensive feedback from a large number of patients, nurses and doctors as well as my own experience as a pharmacist,” he says.
Brian is a third-generation pharmacist and continues to own and run two pharmacies under the brand name O’Donoghue’s Total Health pharmacy, the first of which was set up by his grandfather up more than 110 years ago.
When Brian was growing up he helped his own father in the business before qualifying as a pharmacist himself in 2005 from John Moores University in Liverpool. Once qualified, Brian took over the family business and immediately trebled its size. Three years later, he bought a second pharmacy, this time in nearby Ballyjamesduff.
“I was always interested in developing new products and services that would improve the health and well-being of patients as well as make life easier for pharmacists —and it was this that led me to come up with the idea for the new blister packs,” says Brian. However, his idea was not an overnight success.
“There were existing packs on the market at the time but these lacked many of our innovative features. But it did take time to win over customers,” says Brian. “For example, the first batch of 90,000 packs we made took over a year and half to sell — whereas today we are selling 150,000 a month.”
Brian’s customers now include 1,000 retail pharmacies, 750 in the Republic and 250 between the North and the UK as well as an increasing number of hospital pharmacies and nursing homes throughout the country.
At home he is keen to see the HSE recognize the many tangible benefits of his products and software. And having begun exporting, he now has his sights set on expanding even further into markets such as France, Spain, Italy and Saudi Arabia. Continuing to innovate, he has also invented a semi-automated pill-dispensing machine. Aptly named, HB-160 after his grandfather, Hugh Barny, these machines will be used by pharmacies to fill up to 160 blister packs at a time.
Full of energy and with a passion to improve the quality of life of patients, Brian O’Donoghue is not a man who likes to stand still.
As well as the above products, he continues to run the two pharmacies and has even taken on the distribution rights for Ireland and the UK for a product called Salin Plus, a natural salt-based therapy that relieves the symptoms of chronic respiratory issues including asthma, sinusitis, COPD, snoring and sleep apnoea.
“Our mission now is to become the main manufacturer and distributor of monitored dosage systems in Ireland and the UK and to become the recognised market leader internationally in the design and supply of medicinal and lifestyle products and services that improve the quality of life of patients around the world,” he adds.