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Wedgewood Pharmacy Executive Receives 2021 Compounding Advocacy Champion Award

11/11/2021

Marcy A. Bliss, chief executive officer for Wedgewood Pharmacy, was named the 2021 recipient of the George and Lucy Malmberg Compounding Advocacy Champion Award by the Alliance for Pharmacy Compounding during a ceremony in Washington DC. The annual award, established in 2020, is given to recognize individuals who have engaged in “zealous advocacy on behalf of compounding pharmacy to protect prescribers’ and patients’ access to compounded medications.”

Bliss was given the award to recognize the comprehensive lobbying, legal, public affairs, and grassroots advocacy campaign she led to impact the implementation of FDA’s Draft Guidance for Industry #256, Compounding Animal Drugs from Bulk Drug Substances, first issued in November 2019, to replace similar guidance that was proposed in 2015 and withdrawn in 2017. If implemented, the Guidance would severely restrict access to compounded medications for animal health and dramatically increase the costs for compounding these specialized mediations. Compounded medications are prescribed when a prescriber determines that a commercially manufactured drug is not appropriate for a given patient. In a study conducted as part of the campaign, 99% of veterinarians reported that access to compounded medications is important or very important to their practices.

In accepting the award, Bliss said, “It is a special honor that this award is presented in the names of George and Lucy Malmberg, who founded the company I now lead. While I am honored by the recognition, the campaign was by no means my work alone and was done on behalf of our patients, pet owners, and veterinary customers. Our team included eight Wedgewood Pharmacy employees, attorneys, consultants, lobbyists, and more than 30 industry stakeholders, and had the support of tens of thousands of our veterinary customers and pet owners.”

Those pet owners and veterinarians collectively flooded Congress with more than 90,000 requests to ensure workability and access or to have FDA withdraw the Guidance. The campaign included creation and distribution of a national study of veterinarians, three major white papers, grassroots campaigns, targeted appeals to key Congressional members, and a meeting with the head of FDA’s Center for Veterinary Medicine.

Lucy Malmberg, in whose name the award is given, noted at the ceremony, “What I have described is only the tip of the iceberg of the kind of advocacy work Marcy Bliss has done, while still leading a world-class compounding pharmacy operation in five locations. Marcy demonstrates time and again that rare combination of both practical and strategic thinking about an issue, and then puts them into motion.”

About Wedgewood Pharmacy

Wedgewood Pharmacy is the largest compounding pharmacy devoted to animal-health in the U.S. Compounding is the long-established tradition in pharmacy practice that enables practitioners to prescribe and patients to take medicines that are specially prepared by pharmacists to meet patients' individual needs. A growing number of patients have unique health needs that off-the-shelf prescription medicines cannot meet. For them, customized, compounded medications prescribed or ordered by licensed physicians or veterinarians and mixed safely by trained, licensed compounding pharmacists are the only way to better health.

Compounded medications are created and prepared by specially trained pharmacists and pharmacy technicians in state-regulated pharmacies when mass-manufactured drugs are not, according to a prescriber, available or are not appropriate for a patient. The company’s 503B Outsourcing Facility, Wedgewood Connect, compounds medications under FDA’s modified cGMP standards.

Today’s Wedgewood Pharmacy grew from a local community pharmacy to become one of the largest compounding pharmacies in the United States. It is the leading pharmacy brand in animal health, recognized by 99% of veterinarians, and used by 8 in 10 veterinarians within the past year. It also prepares compounded medications for the human-health medical specialties of addiction medicine, urology and ophthalmology. The company serves more than 50,000 prescribers and hundreds of thousands of patients throughout the U.S. every year.

George (late) and Lucy Malmberg, both pharmacists, purchased Wedgewood Pharmacy in 1981; the year after the pharmacy opened. In June 2016, New Harbor Capital became the majority shareholder of the company. In 2018, the company acquired Diamondback Drugs. In 2020, the company purchased and began production at Wedgewood Connect, an FDA-registered 503B Outsourcing Facility, in San Jose, California. In the same year, the company acquired Wildlife Pharmaceuticals and ZooPharm, in Colorado and Wyoming, respectively. In early 2021, Partners Group, on behalf of its clients, acquired a majority interest in the company from New Harbor Capital.

Wedgewood Pharmacy is accredited by the Pharmacy Compounding Accreditation Board (PCAB®) for compliance with PCAB and other nationally recognized compounding standards. PCAB was formed by eight of the nation’s leading pharmacy associations and is a service of Accreditation Commission for Health Care. As a third-party accreditation organization, PCAB has developed the highest national standards against which providers are measured to demonstrate their ability to effectively and efficiently deliver quality compounded medications to consumers.

Wedgewood Pharmacy employs more than 800 people.

About Partners Group

Partners Group is a leading global private-markets firm. Since 1996, the firm has invested over USD 150 billion in private equity, private real estate, private debt, and private infrastructure on behalf of its clients globally. Partners Group seeks to generate superior returns through capitalizing on thematic growth trends and transforming attractive businesses and assets into market leaders. The firm is a committed, responsible investor and aims to create sustainable returns with lasting, positive impact for all its stakeholders. With over USD 119 billion in assets under management as of June 30, 2021, Partners Group provides an innovative range of bespoke client solutions to institutional investors, sovereign wealth funds, family offices, and private individuals globally. The firm employs more than 1,500 diverse professionals across 20 offices worldwide and has regional headquarters in Baar-Zug, Switzerland; Denver, USA; and Singapore. It has been listed on the SIX Swiss Exchange since 2006 (symbol: PGHN). For more information, please visit www.partnersgroup.com or follow the company on LinkedIn or Twitter.