ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — The American Pharmacy Alliance (APA) and health IT provider ValueCentric have entered into a strategic agreement to jointly deliver data solutions connecting pharmaceutical manufacturers with store-level data for community pharmacies.

ValueCentric said Monday that under the partnership, it and the APA will offer on-demand data, reporting and analytics through ValueCentric’s ValueTrak health care intelligence platform. The supply channel program will deliver data and analytics associated with independent store-level prescription data from participating drug stores among APA’s 12,000 affiliated independent pharmacies and small drug chains.

APA and ValueCentric noted that the program will provide insights that pharmaceutical manufacturers can use to sharpen supply chain operations, optimize marketing and improve financial models in developing a product lifecycle plan.

"APA and its pharmacy system members have a very real commitment to our goal of expanding and improving patient-level services and adding more efficiency to the health care delivery system," American Pharmacy Alliance president Karl Steele said in a statement. "ValueCentric is an ideal partner to help us meet that goal. Through programs like this, pharmaceutical manufacturers will be able to more easily connect with independent pharmacies to deliver more effective patient care."

Through the APA data program, pharmaceutical manufacturers will have access to prescription data elements such as including location ID, prescription details, payment methods and nonidentifiable patient profiles, enabling them to develop structured and highly targeted sales and marketing plans and an optimal product lifecycle plan. In addition, the program will deliver a daily stream of empirically supported evidence that will help support or modify plans.

According to ValueCentric, pharmaceutical manufacturers now have the ability to view actual store-level intelligence from across the pharmacy spectrum, from large chain retail through its Walgreens data program to regionalized mass market chains through its PDX-Rx.com relationship and now to a broad spectrum of independent pharmacies with the APA.

"ValueCentric is thrilled to be working with the American Pharmacy Alliance and its members," stated Dave Janca, founder and chief executive officer of ValueCentric. "This program breaks new ground in the area of near real-time data services, channel transparency and store-level analytics. The views into the independent retail pharmacy environment will provide the manufacturers the granularity of data that’s critically important to their planning and their efforts to be more proactive in support of community pharmacy. In addition, ValueCentric will be establishing a comprehensive data repository for the APA membership to improve their knowledge of the broader marketplace."