One of the biggest challenges facing our local healthcare providers is that small, suburban and rural hospitals, including those in Columbia, have great difficulty sourcing and procuring customized drugs as big pharmaceutical companies focus primarily on large, urban markets. Apollo Care founder James Krogman, along with Jarred Dudding, recognized this problem and are addressing it by launching Apollo Care to provide Missouri hospitals with solutions tailored for their needs. This attention to the needs of customers in smaller markets is one of the things that sets Apollo Care apart from the competition.
Hospitals, eldercare facilities and other customers will definitely enjoy a great deal of benefits when starting a partnership with Apollo Care. The company will be their dedicated, local supplier for identifying and customizing medications including those that might not be commercially available, providing on-demand ordering and flexible door-to-door delivery. With the support from Apollo, the workloads of in-hospital production will be significantly lessened and in return, hospitals will have more resources to invest in patient-care directed activities. Additionally, Apollo also offers the patient-specific compounding, which can be made exclusively for one patient on a one-time basis. This service is filling unmet needs of mid-Missouri healthcare centers, surgery centers and long-term care facilities for drug customizations at patient levels.
What makes Apollo Care unique is not only the niche market they are currently targeting, but the level of commitment and investment they have made in product testing and high-tech compounding infrastructure that enables them to also produce standardized drugs. Along those lines, Apollo engaged a third-party quality assurance agency in their product testing process to ensure that their products are, at a minimum, in compliance with FDA regulations or exceed industry standards such as USP 797. The company’s commitment is to provide a reliable, local delivery while still being able to achieve the highest of patient safety.
The Missouri Innovation Center accepted Apollo Care as a client in September, 2015 and the company became a resident member in January, 2016. After just nine short months, the company graduated and now has two facilities. Apollo Care currently has approximately 4,500 ft² at one location, which includes a 1500 ft² cleanroom/lab. The second location is approximately 750 ft² featuring a 400 ft² cleanroom/lab. The company initially expects to supply four to six products (IV antibiotics, analgesics and oncology medications) growing to provide more than a dozen different types of drugs in the upcoming years. Further in the future, Apollo Care will expand their business to include veterinary applications.
Post written by MBA candidate Yen Le while on assignment to MIC.