Prescription Solutions, the mail-order prescription drug arm of PacifiCare Health Systems Inc., is set to open a new warehouse in Carlsbad that’s expected to employ 300 people by year’s end and grow to 500 in three years.
Prescription Solutions fills prescriptions for Santa Ana-based PacifiCare’s 4 million members and for another 1 million customers from other employer groups and managed healthcare plans.
“Right now, we’re testing our equipment,” said Glenda Owens, Prescription Solutions’ manager of public affairs. “We’ll be opening up when we get our pharmacy license. That’s any day now.” Prescription Solutions sought more space because it outgrew its 22,000-square-foot facility in the San Diego suburb of Mira Mesa, Owens said. Prescription Solutions plans to keep the Mira Mesa site open.
By year’s end, in Carlsbad Prescription Solutions expects to employ 300 pharmacists, technicians, clerks, information systems personnel and warehouse workers, Owens said. By 2003, the workforce is expected to grow by two-thirds, she said.
Prescription Solutions spent around $14 million to renovate the 84,000-square-foot building at the Palomar Business Park near Carlsbad’s Palomar Airport. The pharmacy benefit management company signed a 10-year, $10 million lease for the space.
When fully operational, Prescription Solutions’ new building will have the capacity to fill 30,000 prescriptions a day. It will start out filling around 15,000 a day and ramp up.
Prescription Solutions doesn’t offer any walk-in services, like the retail stores of Walgreen Co. or Rite Aid Corp. HMOs frequently encourage the use of pharmacy benefit management companies like Prescription Solutions as a way to control their members’ drug costs as pharmaceuticals are a growing portion of healthcare dollars. n
