In what may be a sign of interest in non-traditional pharmaceutical packaging, a private equity firm has bought a significant stake in ExactCare Pharmacy — which specializes in flexible film for its home delivery medication business.
Nautic Partners of Rhode Island purchased some shares from CEO Dale Wollschleger, and it bought the minority stake that Primus Capital of Mayfield Heights acquired two years ago, Wollschleger said.
ExactCare was looking for an investor that could help the closed-door pharmacy grow faster, he said, adding that he wanted to keep up with the rest of the pharmacy industry, which is going through a wave of consolidation.
Nautic "partnered with management to invest in and recapitalize ExactCare," according to a news release from Nautic, which has experience investing in health care companies.
“We are going to be hiring quite a few employees,” Wollschleger said, noting that many of them will be pharmacy technicians.
Wollschleger founded ExactCare in 2009. Seven years later, the Valley View, Ohio-based company has about 300 employees. It generated about $98 million in revenue in 2014, up from $50 million in 2013. The figure for 2015 is “quite a bit” higher, Wollschleger said.
ExactCare is best known for the ExactPack — a box of medication customized for a particular person. Inside each box is a long strip of plastic film containing pills in the order that they are to be taken.
The individual packets are aimed at reducing complications of “polypharmacy,” a condition related to people taking four or more medications. The concern is that elderly patients could confuse doses when they're taking them from multiple rigid bottles. The ExactPack film has the precise medication prepared in advance, with the potential to have a packet for morning, noon and evening doses.
ExactCare aims to serve patients across the nation. It is licensed in every state except California.
Nautic will play a key role in that expansion, according to a news release announcing the deal, which closed on March 15.
As part of the deal, ExactCare has appointed two health care executives to its board: Doug Present, former CEO of Managed Health Care Associates of Florham Park, N.J., and Jim Smith, former CEO of QoL meds LLC of Pittsburgh. Present will serve as chairman.
Nautic managing director Chris Corey says that ExactCare “addresses the core of a very difficult problem in health care.”
“By helping patients stay compliant with their medications, ExactCare improves the quality of care to medically complex patients and lowers health care costs,” he stated in the news release.