Pfizer announces further improvements to Pfizer Direct 

Tuesday 15 November

Pfizer Australia today announced significant improvements to the delivery of its medicines to community pharmacies across Australia through Pfizer Direct.

Managing Director John Latham said the package of measures was the latest in a series of enhancements made over recent months. “Pfizer is listening to community pharmacy and responding with significant improvements to meet our customers’ needs,” Mr Latham said. “We are determined to be a reliable and responsive business partner for community pharmacy.” The enhancements include:

• From 1 December 2011, an increase in the number of free deliveries from five to eight per month. While the vast majority of pharmacies are placing five orders per month or fewer, many pharmacists have told us they would like the flexibility of more free deliveries so they can place ‘top up’ orders to help respond to unexpected patient needs. Based on ordering patterns for the past three months, we expect this change will mean that more than 97% of pharmacies will pay no delivery fees.
• From 8 December, an extension to Thursday ordering cut-off times to 4pm for electronic orders and 3pm for manual orders for next business day (Friday) deliveries. This improvement will benefit all pharmacies, particularly those in rural and regional areas, in improving our capacity to get orders despatched and delivered before the weekend.

“When we launched Pfizer Direct, we established a joint monitoring committee with the Pharmacy Guild of Australia to ensure we had expert advice in responding to issues and understanding the needs of pharmacy,” Mr Latham said. “We have listened to the Guild and the points raised in its member survey. We are also responding to feedback from our team of Pfizer Established Products representatives, who are working with pharmacists every day, assisting them with ordering patterns and a range of other issues.”

These changes build on the range of enhancements we have made to Pfizer Direct throughout 2011. These have included:

• Doubled the size of our Critical Products List.
• Combined ambient and cold chain orders.
• Tripled the size of our customer service team.
• Improved secure online access to your account information.
• Opened the Tasmanian Distribution Centre.
• Extended next business day ordering cut-off times.

“We take very seriously our commitment to improving service to pharmacies and we have been working hard since day one to ensure we do that,” Mr Latham said. “Our priority is the health of Australian patients. This is about giving pharmacies and their patients choice in ensuring they receive safe, quality branded and generic medicines in a reliable and timely manner.”