Merck-Medco to Open Automated Pharmacy

Pharmacy benefit manager Merck-Medco will open the world’s largest automated pharmacy today--a seven-acre building in Willingboro, N.J., where workers and state-of-the-art equipment can fill as many as 6,700 prescriptions an hour.

The facility is the size of six football fields. It is expected to employ 800 pharmacists, technicians and other workers, with an annual payroll of $35 million by early 2003.

Its two miles-plus of computer-controlled conveyor systems, linked to some 1,000 bulk containers of popular tablets and capsules, will be able to handle more than 40 million prescriptions annually--without putting the wrong pill in the wrong bottle, company officials claim.

Some critics question the company’s claim its automated system is foolproof.