Rather than be content with its niche market, Doral's Pharmacy Benefit Administrators (PBA)--itself five years old--purchased the well-known PAL Laboratories just two years ago in order to position themselves as an end-to-end pharmaceutical and "nutriceutical" provider.

PBA had established itself as a full-service pharmacy benefits manager for health care plans before acquiring PAL, contracting with pharmacies to help them develop a benefits structure and acting as an information conduit between them and health care groups.

PAL, on the other hand, is a food supplement manufacturing company that distributes over 200 nutritional products and over 70 over-the-counter (OTC) products.

Upon first inspection then it would seem a little unusual that a company like PBA would acquire one like PAL, that is until you consider the booming market for supplements or nutriceuticals as the management at PBA calls them--and that more and more health care plans are incorporating them.

Furthermore, because PBA just upgraded and expanded PAL's in-house manufacturing facility they have not only reduced the overhead on their own brands, they also now have the facilities in place for increased production and can even manufacture top-quality product for other brands that lack production capability.

"With our reputation and the new manufacturing facility," COO Anthony Alfonso explained, "we brought a standardized level of quality to nutriceuticals, one that is lacking in the industry."

There were two additional economic justifications for the acquisition--through streamlining PBA was able to operate both companies with a single management structure, and because PBA had an existing in-house creative resources department, it could step up marketing of PAL brands with a limited increase in expense.

PBA has also looked with interest towards expanding its operations globally, particularly into Central and South America, and PAL's existing licenses in those areas made its acquisition all the more attractive.

Another interesting aspect of PBA's expansion is its venture into the e-commerce sector with the creation of drugspot.com, one that enables them to directly supply consumers in addition to structuring pharmaceutical benefits and manufacturing product.

"Our movement towards e-commerce began at the top," CEO Emilio Ruiz said, "I have a background in IS [internet services]. It made sense for people to be able to order from us directly on-line."

One can see Ruiz's touches in PBA itself as well--all of their client pharmacies are electronically linked in real-time to provide a fully integrated system for dispensing pharmaceuticals, claims processing, and program administration.

Ruiz further explained that drugspot.com also made PBA more attractive to the clients it had already secured because it was an extra service they could provide their customers--and that having an existing client base also limited the amount of additional advertising PBA had to invest in.

Alfonso also pointed out that because of their additional resources PBA could offer consumers a level of savings even greater than other sites.

"Through the internet the products go straight to the consumers," Alfonso said, "and that itself reduces cost. But because we don't have to spend the same amount on marketing as other sites, and because we also manufacture product ourselves, we can pass on even more savings to the consumer."

Operating through a web site also means the added of convenience of direct delivery to the consumer and Alfonso also said that PBA was delivering about 70,000 packages a month in the tri-county area--a number he expected would continue to rise.

PBA is located at 10655 NW 29 Terrace and can be reached at 305 269 9160.

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