Rusk seeks to elevate pharmacists as CEO of Fillex

NEW YORK — Former Publix Super Markets vice president of pharmacy Dain Rusk says the future of pharmacy is about removing the burdens that prevent pharmacists from practicing at the top of their license.

“Automation isn’t a luxury anymore, says Rusk, now chief executive officer of Fillex, a new national pharmacy logistics platform. “It’s what will keep the profession viable, desirable and clinically impactful.”

With Rusk as CEO, Fillex has been launched with an initial investment from Morrison, a global infrastructure investment firm managing more than $30 billion in assets. Fillex will provide centralized, automated pharmacy fulfillment services to retail pharmacies, grocery chains, e-commerce providers and health systems.

At Publix, Rusk says he could clearly see the industry grappling with an alarming “triple threat:” an acute labor shortage, shrinking reimbursements from PBMs and escalating operational costs.

Publix addressed these challenges proactively by investing in pharmacy automation more than a decade ago, which enabled it to process hundreds of thousands of prescriptions weekly through central fill and dramatically reduce manual workload at the store level. Fillex seeks to provide that same capability to other pharmacies across North America, allowing them to improve efficiency and withstand the pressures that continue to force many community pharmacies to close.

The ultimate goal is to enable pharmacists to expand their scope of practice, says Rusk. “This requires a workflow designed to prioritize clinical services — such as immunizations, medication optimization and improving patient outcomes — over repetitive, manual tasks like pill counting and other transactional duties.”

By leveraging automation and AI, pharmacies can reclaim this lost time, improve accuracy and enhance job satisfaction, elevating the entire pharmacy team’s contribution to health care delivery.

“The profession is at a critical crossroads and risks becoming less desirable if we fail to evolve,” he emphasizes. “Declining pharmacy school enrollment has already contributed to chronic staffing shortages in retail pharmacy over the past five to six years, driving added burnout and job dissatisfaction. These pressures are compounded by a growing mismatch between expectations and reality. Pharmacists are burdened with administrative tasks instead of delivering clinical care.

“Investing in pharmacy automation is the key to reversing this cycle and will be essential to sustaining the profession and strengthening its role in health care.”

Fillex will partner with leading pharmacy automation providers to design and deliver fully automated fulfillment facilities that integrate state-of-the-art hardware with unified, intelligent software platforms. Its solutions will be engineered to interface seamlessly with any pharmacy management system, enabling a single, end-to-end operational ecosystem that eliminates fragmentation and dramatically improves accuracy, speed and reliability.

Today, the cost and complexity required to deploy advanced automation puts these capabilities out of reach for most pharmacies. Fillex removes those barriers by taking on the capital investment, providing the hardware and software, and delivering a turnkey solution that empowers pharmacies to operate at a level previously achievable only by the largest chains.

The initial investment in Fillex will be funded through Morrison Value Add II SCSp (MVA II), Morrison’s global middle-market infrastructure vehicle, which focuses on significant capital appreciation by investing behind major global growth opportunities.

Morrison operating partner Marvin Richardson, former CEO of iA, will be joining Fillex’s board of directors as chair. “Fillex provides the missing infrastructure layer for modern pharmacy — an open-access platform that allows operators to scale, protect margins and remain focused on patient care,” said Richardson.

 Backed by Morrison’s significant operational resources and strong track record of scaling platform investments, Fillex is uniquely positioned to meet the industry demand for central fill. “Since 1988, Morrison has been building infrastructure businesses that meet evolving societal needs both in the U.S. and globally,” said William Smales, the firm’s chief investment officer. “While AI-powered automation has the potential to revolutionize pharmacy fulfillment, these next-generation capabilities have remained out of reach for most because they lack the capital, operating scale and technical capability required to build and manage such complex infrastructure.

“The launch of Fillex bridges this critical gap by leveraging Morrison’s deep in-house expertise and our long-standing track record of investing in essential infrastructure. We are excited by the business’s strong fundamentals and, under Dain’s vision and leadership, we look forward to building Fillex into a platform that enables better, more accessible care for society.”

Perry Offutt, Morrison’s New York-based co-head of MVA II, added, “We are very excited to bring this powerful ‘idea that matters’ to market for the benefit of pharmacies, customers and our investors. This investment by MVA II underscores the need for infrastructure capital to provide high-quality logistics and fulfillment facilities, drive new efficiency gains, and expand the capacity and resiliency of the entire health care system.”

At Publix, Rusk led the pharmacy business unit, including operations, central fill, administration and specialty pharmacy. Before joining Publix, he served as group vice president of pharmacy operations at Albertsons Cos., overseeing all pharmacy operations.

Richardson became CEO of iA in March 2020 when an investor consortium led by Greg Wasson, former Walgreens Boots Alliance CEO and including Richardson, acquired a majority stake in the company. He retired in November 2023.

Richardson is a more than 45-year veteran of pharmacy and health care, and an established entrepreneur, having co-founded Capstone Consulting LLC, a pharmacy automation consulting company, in 2015. Prior companies founded and co-owned by Richardson include Low-Cost Health Care, PrairieStone Pharmacies, and DailyMed, a compliance packaging company. He has also worked as a corporate leader with Rite Aid and Walgreens, where he began his career.