Pharmacy software company lays off 71, including 11 at Indy HQ

(Adobe Stock)

Just three years ago, an Indianapolis company that sells pharmacy-automation software had huge hopes for growth here.

Innovation Associates, which does business under the name iA, said it planned to expand its Indianapolis office from 20 to 420 by the end of 2023. Gov. Eric Holcomb and Mayor Joe Hogsett joined company executives in announcing the expansion plan.

But instead of growing, the company is now shrinking. Last week, the company quietly laid off 11 people in the Indy office and 60 people in other markets.

“Since entering the Indianapolis market, we have experienced great growth opportunities and an increase in workforce,” the company said in a statement to IBJ. “We’ve also experienced leadership changes, strategic shifts and additional external factors that affected and will continue to inform the evolution of iA. The number [of workforce growth] published in 2021 was a broad estimation given the business strategy and working environment at the time.”

The company declined to say how many people are working today at its Indianapolis office, located on the 15^th floor of the 8888 Keystone Crossing building. It did provide a figure for total workforce of 537, “across multiple headquarters offices, as well as many in remote settings across the U.S.”

According to the Indiana Economic Development Corp., the company was eligible for up to $8 million in conditional tax credits if it employed 440 workers here by Dec. 31, 2023.

But according to the IEDC’s transparency portal, the company has claimed only $236,731, suggesting that iA has hired only a fraction of its stated goal. The portal does not show the number of workers employed by any particular company.

The company declined to make a senior leader available for an interview. The company had a change in leadership last year, when CEO Marvin Richardson retired and was succeeded by Tom Utech.

In his retirement announcement, Richardson said the industry has started a movement toward automation. “While the industry has yet to fully embrace technology at rates other industries have, it is poised to do so,” he said in written remarks in November.

In a column published in January in Chain Drug Review, Utech said the industry has faced unprecedented challenges for the past three years and have stepped up to meet them. “The dedication is admirable, yet the increasing demands for prescription fulfillment have brought to light the urgent need for change, for a Movement.”

Utech, who holds a doctorate in pharmacy from Creighton School of Pharmacy and Health Profession, said the industry needs to streamline through automation, undergo a digital transformation, and embrace innovative leadership and technology.

iA was founded in 1972 as Innovation Associates, which once designed manufacturing processes for a variety of industries, from the U.S. armed forces to personal computing, according to a profile on Utech in Creighton University’s alumni magazine.

iA sells software products to the retail, hospital, federal health care and mail-order pharmacy markets. It built its first fulfillment centers roughly a decade ago, the alumni magazine said.

“iA’s retail partners no longer fill the majority of their prescriptions on-site,” the magazine said. “The prescriptions are instead filled in a central fulfillment facility and brought to the brick-and-mortar store for the patient to pick up the following day.”

But the company did not want to discuss its business matters with IBJ, including workforce levels in Indianapolis.

“iA is declining any further comment on this matter,” the company told IBJ through an outside spokeswoman. The company did not return several phone calls to IBJ.