AmerisourceBergen 2011 Annual Report Download - page 4

discipline, drove outstanding results that met or
exceeded all of our performance goals for our businesses.
We capitalized on unprecedented specialty generic
opportunities in AmerisourceBergen Specialty Group
(ABSG), had strong revenue growth and generic
performance in AmerisourceBergen Drug Corporation
(ABDC), and had outstanding results in our consulting
and packaging businesses, which were consolidated
into one business unit at the beginning of our new
fiscal year in October 2011.
Our performance was all the more noteworthy
because during fiscal year 2011 we continued to
implement our new SAP enterprise resource planning
system in ABDC and in our corporate functions.
In addition, we reorganized the sales force in ABDC,
our largest business segment, to better reflect current
market trends and align our resources with the changing
healthcare landscape.We have also been successful
in adding new business in geographical areas we have
targeted, such as the NewYork metropolitan area and
in Canada, and we are planning to continue to support
these growth opportunities with capital investments
in infrastructure we will make in fiscal year 2012.
The Company’s superb cash flow has given us
tremendous flexibility to both fund our strategic growth
and return cash to stockholders. In late calendar year
2011, we strengthened market-leading segments of
our business with three acquisitions that bolster our
core competencies and increase the value we deliver
to customers and suppliers.The acquisitions of
Premier Source in September 2011 andTheraCom®
in November 2011 meaningfully expanded the offerings
of AmerisourceBergen Consulting Services (ABCS)
to include reimbursement consulting for molecular
diagnostics and emerging biotechnology therapies and
increased the reimbursement service capabilities for
pharmaceuticals that are covered by the pharmacy
benefit.The acquisition of IntrinsiQ®in September
2011 enhanced the informatics and data analytics
offerings provided byABSG, particularly to our oncology
distribution and services customers and suppliers.We
expect these acquisitions and other investments we are
making in our businesses to continue to help drive growth
and deliver value to our stockholders in the years ahead.
As we look ahead into our next decade, we
see many exciting opportunities on the horizon.
Demographics continue to drive organic growth for
the products we distribute and the services we provide.
The tremendous wave of brand to generic drug
conversions, which benefitted ABSG in 2010 and 2011,
will continue most specifically to impact ABDC,
which will face an unprecedented number of generic
conversions in 2012.This so-called patent expiration
wave represents one of the most compelling opportunities
ABDC has ever had to demonstrate value to generic
manufacturers and healthcare providers.As payers
and consumers seek to contain the costs of healthcare,
our world-class proprietary generic programs deliver
excellent value for healthcare providers and patients alike.
As advances in medicine and pharmaceutical
research lead to new, complex therapies, we are well
positioned to assist manufacturers with commercializing
their products as efficiently and effectively as possible,
and most importantly to ensure patients have immediate
access to advanced therapies. Our consulting expertise
helps manufacturers ensure that the products they
bring to market are covered by a patient’s pharmacy,
medical or other healthcare benefit, that patients are
equipped with the information they need to properly
adhere to the therapy regimen, and that the medications
themselves are delivered to the healthcare provider for
administration to the patient in a timely and safe manner.
Over the next few years, health reform initiatives
are likely to significantly increase the number of patients
seeking access to healthcare services, which will
increase the pressure on public and private payers alike
to provide for more services with the same or fewer
resources. Pharmaceutical manufacturers and healthcare
providers will face renewed pressure to contain costs
and will continue to look to AmerisourceBergen to
provide efficient ways to bring products to market
and to help ensure that the value of pharmaceuticals is
demonstrated to both payers and patients.We believe
that demand for generic products will continue to
increase, both because more brand names are converting
to generics, and because generics represent an excellent
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The Company’s superb
cash flow has given us
tremendous flexibility to
both fund our strategic
growth and to return
cash to stockholders.
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