There is little presently stopping an Amcal pharmacy owner...

There is little presently stopping an Amcal pharmacy owner changing allegiance and switching to become a Priceline Pharmacy anyway. As long as they did not have conflicting locations. You can buy market/location intelligence too but common sense analysis of demographics is often just as good.

The Priceline Pharmacy model is pretty obvious even to the casual observer. Competitive scrip pricing, Sister Club rewards and support for Women's causes very attractive to women, ancillary patient care services (eg MedAdvisor, Flu vaccinations, Heath checks etc), good s/c locations.

Interesting to observe what Symbion has just done creating a mega group having rebranded as Terry White - Chemmart combining three of its groups to gain great presence and operational synergy. Sigma and API now in contrast support multiple groups with different models. A combination of Sigma and API would give them the same opportunity to selectively merge their groups too giving them greater operating efficiencies. One example would be brand marketing. Think of advertising dollars that would be available and extra clout with manufacturers. They could steal cooperative advertising dollars away from CW!