Transitioning from Drug Store to Wellness Center – Part 2 of a Series
In my last post, I invited independent pharmacists to jump into the waters of the rising tide of integrative medicine and “natural” health and wellness. Generally people come into this market from one of either two directions – personal or professional.
Most of the folks who have been in the business of integrative medicine for over 15 years came into it through a personal experience of some kind. Their own health challenge or that of a close family member who couldn’t be helped with conventional medicine is a typical story. Or they were early pioneers with strongly felt values about the earth and nature and concerns about modernization and chemicals on agriculture and medicine. Paul H. Ray and his associate Sherry Ruth Anderson described these people and the phenomenon in their seminal book, The Culture Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing The World.
In the last 15 years, though, a new trend developed where professionals in health and consumer packaged goods became attracted by the profits and the growing market.
When you are new to the movement and its associated industries, there’s a lot to learn and some of the best places to start are trade journals. Here’s my personal list of favorites who have been contributing to the literature of the business of integrative medicine, wellness and the natural products industry for long enough to have credibility and a range of sources that can satisfy even the most discerning clinician.
On the science and business of integrative medicine, Innovision Health Media is a publisher of both consumer facing and professional peer-reviewed content. The company acquired an array of leading publications from the late 80’s and 90’s including Alternative Therapies, Integrative Medicine and Advances in Mind-Body Medicine and brought them together under one roof. The value of these publications to a pharmacists is that together they give a range of information from the most qualified traditional clinical sources and content review processes to the most consumer friendly health and wellness magazine with articles running the gamut from cardiovascular health and maintenance to stress reduction through mind-body and spiritual practices.
A related professional and leader in reporting on the business of integrative medicine is John Weeks, whose print newsletter The Integrator from the 90’s evolved into his current online Blog and email newsletter. A self described maven as defined by Malcolm Gladwell in The Tipping Point, Week’s range of contacts in the integrative medicine world stretches across multiple disciplines and for well over two and a half decades.
New Hope Natural Media is probably the largest producer of trade content as well as trade shows that straddle both the nutrition and the food worlds. Privately owned in the late 80’s and 90’s, New Hope is now owned by Penton Media and has acquired a number of professional companies including The Natural Foods Merchandiser, focusing on natural food retailers from Walmart to small, community independents; Nutrition Business Journal, a research journal focusing on the macro trends affecting the nutrition and organic foods business; and most recently the NPI Center, an online portal and directory of information for professionals in the Nutraceutical, nutritional, dietary supplement, cosmetic, and food industries.
Pharmacists do well when they look at the ingredient side of the nutritional supplement business. They are especially well positioned to understand the science of ingredients that influence both the pharmacological and the nutrition and nutraceutical sides of the wellness spectrum and translate this information to consumers. Functional Ingredients is one of three trade publications that cover ingredient and manufacturing issues from the science of R&D to issues affecting distribution.
Another of these is Natural Products Insider, published by Virgo Publishing. Jon Benninger, a founding editor in 1990 of one of the early Virgo trade publications targeting nutrition retailers, has helped guide their expansion to include trade shows, conferences and a new entry in the health and beauty category Inside Cosmeceuticals.
There are other publications such as Nutritional Outlook, owned by Canon Communications out of LA, but the people involved in the InnoVision, New Hope and Virgo groups have long histories and deep roots in the industry and understand how the lines have blended over the last two decades between conventional and alternative medicine to become integrative medicine.
To get a good dose of the “natural health and wellness” trends and the continuing challenges to professionals and consumers alike, I would start with these. Then send me your comments. I’m interested to hear different views on these publications.
Next time: Going to the Trade Shows to Swim with the Big and Little Fish
Linda O’Hara
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