Competition Bureau Approves Pharmacy Management Merger

Pharmacy management solutions companies TELUS Health and XD³ Solutions recently agreed to make it easier for pharmacists to switch software providers, in order to resolve the Competition Bureau’s concerns that their proposed merger could restrict the ability of pharmacist’s ability to switch software providers.

TELUS health and XD³ have agreed to include the following terms in all of its contracts in Quebec for a period of 5 years:

• Pharmacists will not be required to obtain TELUS Health’s consent prior to performing a data transfer;
• Pharmacists will not be obligated to use TELUS Health’s data transfer tool;
• Depending on the pharmacy management platform being used either pharmacists will be able to provide their new supplier with access to the TELUS Health platform in order to extract the data or TELUS Health will, free of charge, provide the customer with a copy of its data; and
• A data transfer fee of up to a maximum of $2,500 may be charged, only in cases where a pharmacist requests TELUS Health’s assistance with transferring data.