The Harvard Drug Group values honest, hardworking employees, he says, who care about the company in return.

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The Harvard Drug Group, a Liviona, Mich.-based secondary supplier of generic pharmaceuticals, brand pharmaceuticals, major OTCs and vitamins, stays competitive by offering unique services to its customers instead of directly competing with other suppliers, President and CEO Jay Levine says.   

Instead of duplicating other suppliers’ services, Harvard Drug “go[es] after the different opportunities available with each account,” Levine explains. 

The company provides its customers with personalized service, utilizing approximately 100 internal sales reps. Harvard Drug offers superior delivery service, Levine says, and is one of the few in its industry that will deliver on a Saturday.

“We do this to complement [customers’] other suppliers,” he says. “We’re not duplicating others’ services; we’re giving them second opportunities. Where our competitors look at it as just supply management, we treat it as a partnership.”

Harvard Drug services customers in manufacturing, distribution, wholesale, retail, medical and veterinary industries, and it continues to diversify its customer base and corresponding services.

In the last year, the company acquired two businesses with that goal in mind: A medical surgical supplier and a repository wholesaler and compounding distributor. The company guarantees its customers that it can help them increase their profitability, while keeping their primary suppliers.

Pharmaceutical Trends
The current economy has caused some people to forego medication altogether, notes CFO Tom Larkin, but others gravitate to generic drugs to ease the financial pain. Larkin estimates that generics comprise about 50 percent of the company’s business.

“They’re becoming more prevalent, both with the increase in government attention, as well as people trying to manage cost,” he explains. “It’s a negative fact, but we are starting to see more consumers not getting prescriptions to save money.”

Larkin says the company’s strategy of partnering with its customers helps it retain enough business to shoulder the burden. By helping its customers make money, he notes, Harvard Drug does as well.
“We’re one-to-one from the customers to our organization,” he declares. “We’re always partnering with a regional chain. We’re always looking to help them find ways to grow their businesses.”

For example, “A lot of times when [a customer] opens a new store, we’ll stock their store for them initially and delay their payment plan,” Larkin says. “It takes the financial pressure off them when they open their store initially.”

Harvard Drug also has the capacity to manage its customers’ OTC portfolios.
“We have one of the largest bundles of SKUs in generic consumer products in the industry and we’re able to give [customers] a uniform program in order to make a great presentation in their store,” Levine says.

Corporate Culture
“We have a mission statement: ‘We work hard, we work as best as we can and we care about our customers and we care about each other,’ Levine notes. “That’s basically our culture right there.”
Levin describes the Harvard Drug environment as “very entrepreneurial.”

It values honest, hardworking employees, he says, who care about the company in return.
“We don’t need someone walking in here with a suit and tie and sitting up there on a pedestal,” he explains. “We want someone who can roll up their sleeves and get dirty with the rest of us.”
To show its employees it cares about them, Harvard Drug “treats everybody just as we did when we had under 20 employees,” Larkin says, even though the company now employs nearly 500 people.

Harvard Drug Leadership
The company’s leadership team is headed by Randolph J. Friedman, chairman and CEO and Levine. The two purchased Great Lakes Wholesale Drugs in 1988. Friedman is a member of the Government Relations Committee of the National Wholesale Druggist's Associion. Levine holds memberships with the Healthcare Distribution Management Association and the Business Development and Trading Partners Committee.