NACDS leaders mark association’s 90th Year during Total Store Expo
NACDS Chair Mike Wysong, chief executive officer of CARE Pharmacies, and National Association of Chain Drug Stores President and CEO Steven C. Anderson today welcomed attendees to Total Store Expo in San Diego.
Speaking at Sunday’s business program during the conference, Wysong and Anderson delivered a clear message to meeting attendees: The pharmacy industry owns this Association’s 90-year legacy, and together through NACDS, it has a unique opportunity to advance it.
During his remarks, Wysong thanked NACDS chain and supplier members for coming together to commemorate 90 years as an association, celebrate 10 years of the NACDS Total Store Expo and create new firsts that shape our future.
“The NACDS Total Store Expo continues to reimagine ‘what could be’ and to foster innovation by bringing together the right people, at the right time, in the right setting,” Wysong said.
Anderson echoed Wysong’s thoughts, emphasizing the moment that exists now for the industry and for the nation — and NACDS’ place in it.
“For an association that prides itself on representing ‘the face of neighborhood healthcare,’ these are exciting times. These are times of rapid progress for all facets of the industry: pharmacy, health and wellness, consumer goods, the supply chain, technology and beyond,” he said.
Anderson continued by describing the Association’s consistent purpose since its inception in 1933, driven by a “passion for pharmacy and for retail,” “the relationship between retailer and supplier” and the “industry’s collective bond with the American consumer.”
He noted that Nate Shapero, the second volunteer president of NACDS in 1939, characterized this purpose with a motto: the “Triumph of Cooperation.” Shapero defined NACDS from the start as “an effective instrument for the development of a sound relationship between the manufacturer, the producer, the chain store and between ourselves and the public.”
Wysong and Anderson went on to demonstrate what NACDS and the Triumph of Cooperation looks like today — three and a half years after the COVID-19 pandemic.
Wysong explained that the pharmacy industry is making tremendous progress on NACDS policy priorities that are essential to Americans and to the pharmacies on which they rely. Importantly, the industry is achieving this progress together through NACDS, and thanks to the Triumph of Cooperation
Specifically, NACDS continues to build on priority issues and focus areas, including:
- Sustaining the all-levels and all-branches of government pursuit of real and comprehensive pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reform and direct and indirect remuneration (DIR) fee reform;
- Addressing the systemic issues threatening patients’ health and wellness – particularly chronic disease and diet-related disease – through the “NACDS 2023” Initiative and through strategies that include the acceleration of health data and technology and partnerships in healthcare;
- urging states to use the time provided by the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act extension to safeguard patient access by making permanent all of the policies that empowered patients’ pharmacy access during the pandemic;
- maintaining Americans’ post-pandemic access to critical pharmacy-based services by passing the bipartisan Equitable Community Access to Pharmacist Services Act (H.R. 1770/S. 2477).
Total Store Expo wraps up on Aug. 14