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Drug firm's base to relocate

By KRIS HUNDLEY
Published January 23, 2007

Tampa is losing the headquarters of a major institutional pharmacy because of an $8-million lure from the state of Kentucky.

PharMerica Long-Term Care, now based in Sabal Park, is being merged with a competitor and spun off as a public company later this year. Though the new entity will maintain a customer support center in Tampa, its headquarters will be in Louisville, thanks to generous help from Kentucky.

Though PharMerica sought similar incentives from Florida, the company was told it would only qualify for state help if it were adding jobs to its local base of about 325 employees. No such guarantee could be made, so the deal went to Kentucky, where the company has pledged to employ up to 350 people over time.

A spokesman for PharMerica's current parent, AmerisourceBergen Corp. of Valley Forge, Pa., said growth for the merged pharmacy should still mean plenty of work locally. He gave no specifics, however.

"Tampa employees should be patient," said AmerisourceBergen's Mike Kilpatric. "At the very least, there will be a major customer service center in Tampa. What else will be there has not yet been determined."

The upheaval at PharMerica comes as a result of plans made public in August that AmerisourceBergen and competitor Kindred Health Care Inc. of Louisville were merging their institutional pharmacy businesses and spinning them off as an independent, publicly traded company.

The new entity, named PharMerica Corp., will become the second-largest specialty pharmacy of its kind, supplying drugs to nursing homes and assisted living facilities in 41 states. Projected merged revenues will be $1.9-billion, with annual earnings before interest and taxes of a projected $75-million. The companies said the merger is expected to save $30-million by eliminating duplicate costs.

Gregory S. Weisher has been named chief executive officer of the new company. Weishar has been chief executive and president of PharmaCare Management Services, a pharmacy benefit management company that is a subsidiary of CVS Corp.

"Now that we've got the new CEO on board, we can decide which functions will be in Tampa and which in Louisville," AmerisourceBergen's Kilpatric said. "There certainly could be a lot of career growth opportunities out of this combination."

AmerisourceBergen and Kindred also said that they received a letter from the IRS affirming the tax-free nature of each company's spin-off. Each company's shareholders will hold 50 percent of the shares in the new company.

The deal is expected to be completed by the end of March.

Kris Hundley can be reached at hundley@sptimes.com or 727892-2996.

[Last modified January 22, 2007, 22:34:41]