Q&A: How Innovation is at the Heart of this Independent Pharmacy’s Growth

From her time in pharmacy school in the early 2000s to being named Most Admired CEO by the Charlotte Business Journal, Amina Abubakar, PharmD, AAHIVP, has demonstrated a wealth of experience as an independent pharmacy owner. Now serving as owner of Avant Pharmacy and President of Avant Institute, Abubakar explained that innovation was the catalyst for growing her business and separating herself as a renowned pharmacist among other providers.

“A window of innovation was available. There was not a lot of corporate structure and so creativity went a long way in the independent [space],” Abubakar told Drug Topics. “Over the years, we've existed because we've broken barriers through innovation, and that's where our name is now.”

"I believe around 2021, we renamed ourselves to Avant, and Avant is really like Avant Garde—forward-thinking, innovative," Abubakar told Drug Topics. | image credit: Pateemoh / stock.adobe.com

Read through part 1 of our interview series with Abubakar as she dives into her career journey and the opportunities that arose throughout it. Also, stay tuned for more from the conversation, where Abubakar discusses the current state of pharmacy and gives the future generation of pharmacists advice on how to truly succeed in an ever-dynamic profession.

READ MORE: How to Make the Pharmacy a Community Health Hub

Drug Topics: Can you give us a little background on yourself and how your career path is taking you to becoming an independent pharmacy owner?

Amina Abubakar: I graduated in 2005 and I worked at a big-box retail chain for about 2 to 3 years. I did home infusion for about 2 years, and then I stumbled upon an independent pharmacy that I was doing relief work for, and I felt like that was more where I felt at home the most because of the relationship-building and the ability to actually impact patients. A window of innovation was available. There was not a lot of corporate structure and so creativity went a long way in the independent [space].

Fast forward, in 2009, I founded our independent pharmacy. At that time, it was called RX Clinic Pharmacy, and now we've transitioned to Avant Pharmacy. When I got into the independent space, and knowing our initial name was RX Clinic, I wanted to think beyond the prescription for every patient. Even if we were not in an ambulatory care setting or a hospital setting that [are] mostly linked to clinical pharmacists, I knew a lot of opportunities existed in the community setting. That's why our name at that time was RX Clinic. Every prescription that a patient brought in, it wasn't looked at like, ‘Oh, this patient just brought it Metformin.’ Or, why are they taking it? What are the social aspects of this patient that we can counsel? And so those were some of the things.

I believe around 2021, we renamed ourselves to Avant, and Avant is really like Avant Garde—forward-thinking, innovative. Over the years, we've existed because every time we've broken barriers through innovation, and that's where our name is now.

Drug Topics: What inspired you to found the Avant Institute of Clinical Pharmacy in 2017 and what key outcomes or impact are you most proud of?

Amina Abubakar: Because of all the innovation we were doing in our pharmacy, I would be invited to speak [at] different conferences. That led to many people reaching out to say, ‘Hey, do you have a little time to talk to me? How can I start this service? How can I do what you guys are doing?’ While I'm very generous with my time and willing to help everyone, it became a lot more challenging to tell people what's just the tip of the iceberg. If you ask me, ‘Hey, how do I start this collaborative practice that you guys are doing with chronic care management?’ Yes, I can tell you what's available on Google. This is the code, this is what we do. But how do you build a sustainable business? What's underneath that iceberg? All those systems in place, the marketing, the strategy, the billing, the code, so it goes a long [way].

So that's when I thought, and our team thought, if we had a place that people could land, then we could have dedicated time for them, whether through our consulting services or building content that if people aren't ready yet and they're just curious. We're now more intentional on creating that content and putting those resources and having people have a place they could go and get started to even think about it. That's how it started.

READ MORE: Pharmacy Industry Transitions From Traditional Dispensing to Clinical Services

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