June 22, 2013 Written by Frank Gluck
The device vaguely resembles a high-tech vending machine, though the robotic arm and syringes behind its display glass are clear giveaways that it doesn’t dispense soft drinks.Most commonly, it’s actually producing mixed pharmaceuticals and intravenous solutions like magnesium sulfate, a drug used for hospital patients needing to replenish their electrolytes or those needing an anti-convulsant.
Here at LeeSar, a Fort Myers-based medical supplier that Lee Memorial Health System partially owns, devices like this produce about 600 such mixed, or “compounded” IV solutions and injectables a day for patients at seven Florida hospitals. And, given drug shortages and recent deadly contamination scandals at drug mixing facilities elsewhere, business here is expected to grow.
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