Chief Pharmacy Buyer

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Job Band G2 

 

Position Summary

 

The Chief Pharmacy Buyer is responsible for overseeing and optimizing drug procurement practices across Duke Health System’s hospitals, infusion centers, ambulatory surgical centers, and retail pharmacies. This role ensures purchasing alignment, cost containment, waste reduction, regulatory compliance, and operational efficiency across the entire health system. The position also serves as the primary super-user for Duke Health’s drug purchasing cost containment software to maximize financial savings and purchasing efficiency.

 

Duties and Responsibilities

 

PHARMACY BUYER SUPPORT, TRAINING, & SUPERVISION: (40%)

• Lead and support pharmacy buyers across DUHS, including hospitals, infusion centers, ambulatory surgical centers, retail pharmacies, and clinics, both on-site and virtually, with a primary focus on optimizing drug purchasing practices.  Support will include guidance related to

 

• • Drug order placement
  • Maintaining a high level of compliance with regard to purchasing of GPO preferred drugs
  • Strategic selection of alternative products when GPO preferred products are unavailable
  • Managing of backorders and drop ship orders
  • Generating purchase orders
  • Delivery tracking
  • Implementation of spend-reduction opportunities

 

• Lead onboarding and training for new pharmacy buyers.  Create standardized training for all pharmacy buyers to align drug purchasing operations across all Duke Health System entities, ensuring adherence to the formulary, purchasing policies, GPO compliance, and cost-saving strategies.

 

• Collaborate with existing on-site pharmacy buyer supervisors to provide input on buyer performance for midpoint and year-end evaluations, specific to drug purchasing responsibilities, while also ensuring that non-purchasing duties of the pharmacy buyers remain under the supervision of their existing supervisors.

 

 

COST CONTAINMENT SOFTWARE MANAGEMENT (40%)

• Serve as the DUHS super-user of cost containment software to ensure that the health system realizes the maximum saving in drug spend by:
  • Identifying drug purchasing cost-saving opportunities across the health system and providing monthly recommendations of identified savings opportunities to pharmacy leadership for evaluation.
  • Ensuring appropriate implementation by pharmacy buyers of savings opportunities approved by pharmacy leadership.
  • Assist with data reporting and performance monitoring with leadership.

 

GPO COMPLIANCE (5%)

 

• Monitor pharmacy buyer purchasing practices to ensure compliance with GPO contracts in order to realize the maximize rebate incentives.  

  

REVERSE DISTRIBUTION OPTIMIZATION (5%)

 

• Leverage the reverse distributor vendor's online reporting platform to minimize the volume of expired drugs by 
  • Monitoring drug expiration and waste trends
  • Identifying drugs that expire frequently
  • Working with pharmacy buyers to optimize par levels in pharmacy inventory systems based on data analytics and usage trends
  • Maximizing financial credits for expired drugs
  • Collaborating with pharmacy buyers to implement targeted waste reduction strategies

 

340B PROGRAM COMPLIANCE (5%)

 

• Collaborate with the Pharmacy 340B team as needed to ensure pharmacy buyer practices maintain 340B program compliance.

 

Required Qualifications

 

Education

 

A bachelor's degree in a business, Healthcare Administration, Pharmacy, or health-related field is required.

Active certification through the Pharmacy Technician Certification Board(PTCB) as a certified pharmacy technician(CPhT) is preferred. 

 

Experience

 

• Minimum of 5 years work experience, including 3 years of experience with significant responsibility for performance/ process improvement. Experience leading work teams is required.  6 months of experience working as a pharmacy buyer - preferred
• Proficiency with pharmacy procurement software and Microsoft Office tools. 
• Experience can