JOHNSON CITY, N.Y. — The founder and chairman of Innovation, the leading provider of Pharmacy Intelligence and pharmacy automation to the retail, hospital, government, and mail order pharmacy markets, has died. Joseph “Harry” Boyer passed away Tuesday morning at his home in Johnson City after a prolonged illness, the company announced.

After establishing Innovation as a research and development engineering, technical services, and manufacturing firm in 1972, Boyer shifted Innovation’s focus in 1995 to pharmacy automation and launched the company’s PharmASSIST automated prescription dispensing product at the 1997 National Association of Chain Drug Store’s (NACDS) Pharmacy and Technology Conference in Boston.

Innovation now stands as a leader in the pharmacy automation arena with a wide-ranging product suite of high-volume pharmacy automation and process optimization solutions and more than 2,000 installations worldwide.

During his career leading Innovation, Boyer earned such notable achievements as the New York State Small Business Person of the Year and the Broome County Chamber of Commerce Small Business Person of the Year awards, both in 2004. He also developed a strategic partnership with Binghamton University’s internationally renowned Thomas J. Watson Institute of Systems Excellence (WISE). The Innovation and WISE teams have collaborated on numerous technological initiatives and the industry/academia relationship continues to flourish with ongoing work in the fields of big data analysis, visual process simulation, and artificial intelligence. Boyer’s work with the university was acknowledged in 2011 when he was awarded the Binghamton University Technical Innovator of the Year award.

“Mr. Boyer was a longstanding and steadfast champion of our academic endeavors. He has positively impacted the lives of numerous students, faculty, and staff. Personally, I would consider him to be a mentor and a friend, a person whose life was an example for all of us. He will be sorely missed,” said Krishnaswami (Hari) Srihari, dean, Thomas J. Watson School of Engineering and Applied Science at Binghamton University.

Services for Boyer will be held at J.F. Rice Funeral Home in Johnson City on February 2 from 3 – 6 PM, followed by the funeral mass service at St James Catholic Church in Johnson City on February 3 at 10 AM. In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to the Alzheimer’s Association
at www.alz.org.