Monthly Prescribing Reference is targeting pharmacists with a new edition aimed at providing them a counter-top quick-reference.
The Haymarket title will launch a quarterly edition in January 2007, featuring original content and going out to pharmacists in charge at 59,000 stores nationwide—chains and pharmacies alike—based on the National Council of Prescription Drug Plans list.
“There’s a need in the marketplace for this type of product,” said publisher Jim Pantaleo. “Pharmacists are the drug information experts. They go to school for six years to get their PharmDs. Our whole staff is made up of PharmDs, and throughout our 20-year history pharmacists have been subscribing out of their own pockets.”
Haymarket conducted a survey of MPR readers who are pharmacists and found strong demand for a special edition.
Existing reference books for pharmacists, like Wolters Kluwer Health’s Facts & Comparisons and US PDI, are too unwieldy and difficult to update, said editorial director Jim Burke, RPh.
“They sit back behind the desk and collect dust,” said Burke.
Many pharmacies, he added, are not online, and most drug reference software is little use
beyond checking for drug interactions.
Few pharmacists, he said, have portable devices, “And we have to spend a lot of our day in the aisle.”
MPR, a slender volume updated quarterly, hopes to cash in on that need by providing them a quick and easy reference that will fit easily into the pocket of a lab coat.
With the Medicare prescription drug benefit magnifying the role of the pharmacist, Pantaleo said prospective advertisers are showing interest in the title, even if they’re not biting quite yet.
From the December 01, 2006 Issue of MM+M - Medical Marketing and Media
