Formulae wins two categories at Albury Wodonga Business Awards

Formulae, a small group of chemists, now with a shop front and laboratory on the corner of Smollett and Olive streets, Albury, took out two awards at the Albury Wodonga Business Awards on Friday, August 11.

The business, with a distinct difference to traditional retail pharmacies in that they formulate personalised potions was formerly known as the Border Compounding Pharmacy and operated out of a small Wagga Road premises.

It has won the categories of outstanding business in healthcare and social assistance, and overall most outstanding business.

Formulae, with its a thriving operation in the city's CBD has come a long way from its humble beginnings, its general manager and formulation chemist Jo Wilkie said.

"Ten years ago it was a very small team and then we moved over to our spot in Smollett Street about five years ago," Ms Wilkie said.

"We are purely a compounding pharmacy, so we will make various dosage forms and medications that aren't available in your traditional retail pharmacy.

"We can make anything because we're a team of formulation chemists and compounding pharmacists."

Ms Wilkie said the vision of the business was a wider focus than just their own success; she hopes to raise the level of standards in the compounding pharmacy industry.

"Essentially, there's no standards to it, and everyone can compound anything willy nilly," she said. "We just want to set a precedent within the industry and to the consumer groups as well, that we have a very high level of quality management standards, and everyone should be abiding by it as well.

"So that's why we're setting the pathway and opening that up as like a licensing model for other pharmacies."

She said the business was immune to the furore over prescription medicine changes as their business was allowed to compound only products that aren't commercially available and only products that are commercially available can be on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme.

"The Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme issue doesn't affect us, everything we do is private, so we're unaffected by that," she said.

Ms Wilkie said the business catered for all ages of patients, from elderly people with chronic pain to young people who had developed an awareness of preventative wellbeing.

"For the prescription medication, we get anyone from the doctor's referrals or from the vets as well," she said.

"But in terms of our hormone harmony services, they're probably our most popular ones, that's typically for women 40 and over, however, we're just about to extend that range to include men and athletes and then younger women down the track as well.

"But in saying that, we're noticing a big shift in the younger generation, they've got a real interest in their health and wellbeing and they're really proactive in their health and they want that preventative health care, instead of that corrective health care later down the track."

Formulae pharmacist in charge Andrew Middlin said the secret to the operation's success was listening to their customers' needs.

"The way that we actually create our products is all based on customer feedback and customer needs so we're constantly developing new products and that comes from the need of the customer," Mr Middlin said.

"We've got what we call our hormone harmony package, so we've had an inundation of people just asking about it to help with menopause, it wasn't being treated properly.

"Over the space of the past six to 12 months we wrote an entire menopause treatment protocol because that was a need that people had."

The operation employs eight people including a formulation chemist, compounding pharmacist, skin control consultants, lab technicians, and a quality management system officer.

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