Medco to Build Automated Pharmaceutical Facility

INDIANAPOLIS—Medco Health Solutions Inc. announced plans to build a 318,000-square-foot, highly automated facility in Central Indiana.

When it opens in early 2009, the facility will cover an area the size of six and a half football fields and reach peak operation in 2012, according to Medco.

The pharmaceutical supplier also said it will invest more than $140 million to develop a mail-order facility that will employ pharmacists, pharmacy technicians, engineering technology, pharmacy support and management positions to dispense more than one million prescriptions per week at peak operation.

"Medco has pioneered the use of computers, robotics, optical scanners and other technologies to create drug dispensing systems which are virtually error-free," said Kenneth O. Klepper, Medco’s president and chief operating officer.

Medco’s existing automated dispensing pharmacies in Willingboro, N.J., and Las Vegas dispensed 90% of the company’s mail-order prescriptions last year. The company’s automated pharmacies currently have the capacity to fill more than 2 million prescriptions per week.