Raj Nutan, Numark’s director of commercial operations, unveiled the virtual chain’s own generics offering, Numerics, which offers “market-leading prices on over 1,350 generic molecules with tiered discounts based on monthly spend”.

“We’ve always championed the benefits of belonging to one of our supplier schemes. These will continue, but the impact of continuous discount deduction on remuneration means that many pharmacists will still continue to try and get the best possible price on a molecule by molecule basis in the belief that this level of detailed focus is the only way of making the most amount of profit on generics,” said Mr Nutan.

Members could simply buy all their generics through their PMR and benefit from a maximum 10 per cent rebate on qualifying products. “Numerics is a complete solution across the whole range of generics with no affiliation to any one brand or manufacturer. The objective is to get the best price for every molecule through Numark’s buying power while encouraging and incentivising our members to buy all their generics through Numark rather than shopping around.”

Numerics PLUS allowed members to maintain their loyalty to existing Teva or Actavis schemes and top up with additional lines through Numerics. These members would benefit from their normal Teva or Actavis scheme rebates, plus their total spend with Numerics and Teva or Actavis would be combined to give an overall spend discount.

Mr Nutan also announced a partnership with PharmAssist Solutions that gave members a technology solution to purchasing products at the best possible price from suppliers of their choosing.

PharmAssist Elite managed the order function for a single outlet or small groups of pharmacies. It included the Cascade programme, which always ordered the lowest priced molecule from a group of selected suppliers. It dealt with out-of-stocks and code mapping errors in real time via a seamless link to Rx Systems’ PMR, and it worked for generics, parallel imports, surgical and OTC products.

Numark had also teamed up with accountants Hacker Young to provide a benchmarking service at both regional and national levels. The detailed report included recommendations and compared gross and net profit, turnover, overheads, net ingredient cost (NIC) and average item value (AIV).