By Alex Holwerda

Special to the Sentinel-Tribune

Premier Mid-America, a company owned by Premier Pharma (along with the Wood County Hospital and Progressive Health), celebrated the opening of their new Bowling Green location with a ribbon cutting ceremony on July 20.

The ceremony included congratulatory words from Mayor Mike Aspacher.

Premier Mid-America offers medical supplies to independent healthcare organizations through top quality service at an affordable cost.

The Bowling Green location, at 2231 Venture Drive, will also be the company’s central hub as they continue to expand throughout the Midwest. Along with the brand-new facility, Premier-Mid America also built a nearby warehouse to facilitate distribution across the Midwest.

“We sell the drugs that hospitals buy. We store them and we sell them to pharmacies and hospitals to use,” said Jacob Fuchs, CEO of Premier Pharma and president of the board of Premier Mid-America.

“We are also a software company, which is funky. Software is leased but I develop software. Our basis has some software solutions that allowed us to enter the market, which would have been impossible to enter otherwise because its such an exclusive market and its so expensive.”

Premier Pharma originally began by distributing to the pharmacies that Fuchs family owned. It grew to 200 pharmacies and now the company has over 2,000 customers that buy from them. Their presence is mostly on the West Coast (with California, Idaho, Utah and Nevada making up the majority of their sales) but they sell to 19 different states.

“Basically, our offering is a transparent model for drug costs that the hospital co-owns, and software solutions to increase the value of that stock. What that means is we want the hospitals to maximize not only their access to drugs but get that ownership back in the hands of them because it’s been stolen,” Fuchs said.

With only a handful of companies making up a majority of pharmaceudical purchasing, they often send their supplies to larger cities. Fuchs stressed the importance of keeping the process transparent.

“They’re sending it to more strategic voting areas. If Ohio or Wood County owns their drugs, they’re protected from that. If they keep it transparent, they can never harm themselves,” Fuchs said.

By reducing the number of middlemen and creating a more affordable and efficient process, Premier Mid-America can better support the Bowling Green community, he said.

“It’s a partnership that doesn’t require the hospital to buy all of their drugs from us or anything. It’s just there to support the hospital,” Fuchs said.

Premier Mid-America’s hours are Monday through Friday from 8 a.m.-5 p.m. Orders can be processed online until 5:30 p.m.

“We have the capabilities to keep that next-day shipping and same-day shipping for local orders. The goal is to expand to more locations so it’s more of a direct model,” Fuchs said.