iA, a company that provides an integrated Pharmacy Fulfillment Platform for retail, health system, and government pharmacies, announced today current President and Chief Operating Officer, Tom Utech has been appointed the role of Chief Executive Officer. Utech replaces Marvin Richardson, who is retiring after serving as the Chief Executive Officer since March 2020. Richardson, who is an industry leader within pharmacy automation and centralization, will continue to serve as a member of the Board of Managers, and as an Industry Advisor to the CEO and Chairman of the Board.
“Today’s announcement follows a comprehensive process and multi-year organizational succession plan to identify the best candidate to continue to lead iA,” said Greg Wasson, iA Chairman of the Board. “We thank Marvin for his unwavering commitment to the pharmacy industry and his vision for iA over the last four years. We are building on our past success and future growth; I am excited for Tom to continue to drive iA towards our company mission to Unleash the Full Potential of Pharmacy.”
Tom Utech, PharmD, joined iA in 2020 as Chief Strategy Officer. In 2022 Tom Utech was appointed President and Chief Operating Officer. In this role, Tom oversaw the development and execution of iA’s growth strategy, portfolio, technology development, sales, operations, and customer success. In his previous role as Chief Strategy Officer, Utech oversaw the advancement and development of iA’s portfolio of solutions, including the launch and expansion of NEXiA, and the launch of SmartPod, iA’s next-generation robot that delivers innovative scale in a central fill pharmacy environment. Utech is a pharmacist who has worked across a range of pharmacy environments, previously leading the Integrated Solutions business within BD and overseeing pharmacy operations at large medical centers. Across his career, Utech has focused on transforming medication management and is committed to working with pharmacy providers to take advantage of iA’s suite of pharmacy automation solutions to transform their operations with meaningful outcomes that benefit their patients and pharmacy staff.
Richardson has served as CEO since March of 2020 when an investor consortium led by Greg Wasson, former Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO and including Richardson acquired a majority stake in the company. Richardson is a 43-year veteran of pharmacy and healthcare, and an established entrepreneur, having co-founded Capstone Consulting LLC, a pharmacy automation consulting company, in 2015. Prior companies founded and co-owned by Richardson include Low-Cost Health Care, PrairieStone Pharmacies, and DailyMed, a compliance packaging company. Richardson has also worked as a corporate leader with Rite Aid and Walgreens, where Richardson also began his pharmacy career.
“It has been an honor and a privilege to lead iA the past 3 ½ years,” said Richardson. “Over the past four years we have started to see a Movement by the pharmacy industry toward automation. While the industry has yet to fully embrace technology at rates other industries have, it is poised to do so – this Movement will be powerful and will open the possibilities for pharmacists to truly fulfill their purpose and impact the health and well-being of the communities they serve.”
“I am excited to build upon the foundation Marvin has built and continue to drive the success and growth of iA,” said Tom Utech, CEO iA. “As I look to the future for iA I am convinced that our commitment to innovation and ability to offer robust solutions for our pharmacy partners of all different sizes, will ultimately transform the industry overall to focus on the pharmacist-patient relationship.”
iA also announced Ryan Bingham would assume the role of Chief Operating Officer. Ryan, formerly the Group President, Solutions and Operations, has been with iA for 2 years focused on upleveling the customer experience by scaling operations, customer success, engineering, new product development, manufacturing, supply chain, project management office, implementation, and field service support. Bingham has many years of experience scaling businesses and operations across pharmacy, medical device, and fulfillment coming from Amazon, Express Scripts (Cigna), Danaher Corporation, and most recently Deliverr.
As part of iA’s focus on the customer experience, Reed Richardson has been appointed to Chief Commercial Officer, reporting to Utech. This is a new role at iA focused on the end-to-end lifecycle of the customer experience for existing and new customers of iA. Reed joined iA in 2020 and has held various leadership roles in Product and Marketing. Prior to iA, he spent several years leading and supporting various healthcare companies, many of which were pharmacy focused.
Dave Ristow, Chief Financial Officer and Jessica Baer, Chief Legal Officer will continue in their roles and Ryan will join Jessica and Dave as Corporate Officers of iA reporting directly to Tom Utech.
About iA
iA® (Innovation Associates®) is a pharmacy fulfillment company that provides an integrated platform of capabilities to support Centralized and Community Pharmacy Fulfillment Solutions. With over 30 years of experience in the pharmacy fulfillment business, we have developed and implemented a suite of automation and software solutions that help deliver quick and sustainable business results. Our integrated Pharmacy Fulfillment Platform enables scalable solutions that helps run the prescription fulfillment process from prescription acceptance to delivery, supporting dynamic design flexibility to service pharmacies in a variety of volumes and settings. Our solutions improve workflow, and increase efficiency, while enabling more time for pharmacists to focus on their patients. iA works with pharmacy providers in the Commercial, Health Systems, Government, and Mail Order/eCommerce markets. iA can help customers transform their pharmacy. For more information, visit iARx.com.
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