Press Releases

SAN DIEGO, June 13, 2005 – Cardinal Health, Inc. (NYSE: CAH), the leading provider of products and services supporting the health care industry, today announced a strategic alliance with Integrated Healthcare Systems, Inc. (IHS), a leading pharmacy technology company. The company made the announcement at the American Society of Health-System Pharmacists’ Summer Meeting in Boston. 

By integrating its Pyxis® automation products with IHS' product suite, Cardinal Health offers the most comprehensive solution to automate a hospital pharmacy – from the time medication is ordered from the wholesaler and delivered to the pharmacy until it is stocked in the automated dispensing machine on the nursing floor.

Cardinal Health will market IHS’ full suite of products, including the Bar Code Labeling System, OS-PAC oral-solid medication packaging system, autoPharm inventory manager and carousel storage and retrieval system. These products interface with Cardinal Health’s established pharmacy-centric products such as the Pyxis Connect™ physician order management system, Pyxis CIISafe™ controlled substance management system, Pyxis PARx® pharmacy auto-replenishment system and Pyxis MedStation® automated medication management system.

“This strategic alliance reinforces Cardinal Health’s commitment to providing solutions that improve patient safety and clinical workflow,” said Dwight Winstead, president and chief operating officer of the Clinical Technologies and Services segment of Cardinal Health. “By enabling pharmacies to bar code down to the unit dose, we are helping to ensure medication verification can occur in the safest, most effective manner possible throughout the continuum of care.”

“The Cardinal Health and Pyxis® product brands are industry leaders, and this strategic alliance will allow IHS' innovative pharmacy automation products to reach a larger share of the market,” said James E. Torina, president and chief executive officer for Integrated Healthcare Systems. “We’re pleased to provide Cardinal Health customers with access to our high quality, flexible solutions that improve workflow and productivity by decreasing the number of steps in the pharmacy management process.”

By integrating Cardinal Health and IHS technology, Cardinal Health will market the following products to its customers under its Pyxis® product brand:

- The Pyxis® Oral Solid Packager system packages oral solid medications from bulk inventory to unit-dose or multi-dose packages at speeds of up to 60 doses per minute. The system prints up to 19 lines of changeable text per package, with or without bar coding, and models range from 80 to 500 canisters to meet each facility’s drug formulary needs. More doses can be filled in less time, freeing pharmacists for clinical care.

- The Pyxis® Bar Code Labeler system bar codes vials, ampules, IV bags, creams and other pharmacy items, enabling verification throughout the medication-use process. A unique, patent-pending feature provides transfer labels for each vial to apply to syringes drawn from that vial. This ensures accuracy and saves time for nursing, enhancing patient care.

- The Pyxis® autoPharm® inventory manager communicates with Pyxis® products and other existing pharmacy systems to prioritize the daily drug fulfillment process. By employing bar code and “pick to light” technology, Pyxis® autoPharm software enhances employee efficiency, improves dispensing accuracy and helps maintain a perpetual inventory.

- Pyxis® 340B Split-Billing software processes and tracks non-340B usage to create best prices files, allowing facilities to accurately manage costs and inventory. The software orders applicable products at the lowest 340B contract prices, automatically generates files indicating non-340B usage and operates with any wholesale vendor’s database.

Under the terms of the agreement, IHS will continue to independently distribute its products to a designated market under its own brand.

About Cardinal Health
Cardinal Health, Inc. (www.cardinalhealth.com) is the leading provider of products and services supporting the health care industry. Cardinal Health develops, manufactures, packages and markets products for patient care; develops drug-delivery technologies; distributes pharmaceuticals and medical, surgical and laboratory supplies; and offers consulting and other services that improve quality and efficiency in health care. Headquartered in Dublin, Ohio, Cardinal Health employs more than 55,000 people on six continents and produces annual revenues of more than $65 billion.
Except for historical information, all other information in this news release consists of forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected, anticipated or implied. The most significant of these uncertainties are described in Cardinal Health's Form 10-K, Form 8-K and Form 10-Q reports (including all amendments to those reports) and exhibits to those reports, and include (but are not limited to) the costs, difficulties, and uncertainties related to the integration of acquired businesses, the loss of one or more key customer or supplier relationships or changes to the terms of those relationships, changes in the distribution patterns or reimbursement rates for health-care products and/or services, the results, consequences, effects or timing of any inquiry or investigation by any regulatory authority or any legal and administrative proceedings, the impact of previously announced restatements, difficulties in opening new facilities or fully utilizing existing capacity, difficulties and uncertainties associated with business model transitions, including the conversion of margin generated from branded pharmaceutical manufacturers to non-contingent consideration, and general economic and market conditions. Cardinal Health undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statement.