💊 The Fax Machine Won

In 2003, a Swedish engineer named Håkan Lans sued the US government for patent infringement on GPS technology. He won. The US paid him once, then quietly changed the rules so they'd never have to again. The lesson: building something genuinely useful is apparently no guarantee you'll profit from it — especially when the people you built it for can just decide the rules don't apply.

Canada spent $298 million learning this the hard way. Good morning. 🫡

Quick — before you hear "the pharmacist will be right with you" for the 47th time today:

• $298M, nine years, 5% uptake — PrescribeIT is dead and the CEO left with $900K.
• Ontario's 14 new minor ailments finally have a July start date. Circle it.
• Quebec pharmacists pulled energy drinks. A 15-year-old with ADHD meds is why.
• Generic semaglutide is here — twice. Your brand Ozempic fridge is now a liability.
• CPhA launched a campaign about letting pharmacists actually use their degree.
• Canada is short 1,600 pharmacists. Could be 3,200 by 2034.

MAIN STORY

💊 The Fax Machine Won

$298 million. Nine years. 5% uptake. PrescribeIT is dead — and the board called it a success.

What happened: Canada Health Infoway launched PrescribeIT in 2017 with one job: kill the fax machine. After nine years and $298 million in federal funding — roughly $98M of it to Telus Health — fewer than 5% of Canadian prescriptions ever used it. Ottawa announced shutdown May 29. CEO Michael Green was fired April 29 after a parliamentary appearance where he answered almost nothing. The Auditor General has been called in. The board's response: it was "a technological success." The provinces just didn't make doctors use it.

So what: You watched this from the counter in real time. Prescriptions kept faxing in. Some of you stopped entirely when they started charging pharmacies 20 cents per Rx — a toll on a road nobody was driving. The PrescribeIT story isn't a tech failure. It's what happens when you build a solution for the wrong end of the transaction. Pharmacies were ready. They were charging pharmacies. Prescribers ignored it. Everyone already knew this.

Now what: Bill S-5 is before the Senate with a new national e-prescribing standard. There's a parliamentary committee investigation still running. The fax machine may finally lose — but not because anyone learned anything. Because there's a body count this time.

⚡ RAPID FIRE

Four things that actually happened while you were on hold with ODB

⚖️ Ontario's 14 new minor ailments: July is the date.

As of today, it's official — pharyngitis, otitis externa, shingles, and 11 others are coming in July. OCP's mandatory learning is Board-approved. July is coming fast — get your workflow sorted before the first patient walks in asking about their sore throat.

🥤 Quebec pharmacists pulled energy drinks. A 15-year-old is why.

Familiprix — 455 locations across Quebec and New Brunswick — removed energy drinks after Zachary Miron, 15, died in 2024 mixing one Red Bull with his ADHD medication. His parents pushed. The Quebec order of pharmacists followed. The legislature passed a unanimous motion. The question is coming to your counter: "Are these safe with Concerta?" Worth having an answer ready.

💉 Generic Ozempic is here. Two of them. Watch your fridge.

Canada became the first G7 country to approve generic semaglutide — twice in five days. Dr. Reddy's (April 28), then Apotex (May 1). Per pCPA rules: 2 generics on market = both drop to ~50% of brand price. Brand Ozempic sits at $228/4 weeks — do the math. Eight more submissions are pending. Owners: stop topping up. You lived through Entresto. You know how this ends.

📢 CPhA launched a campaign about letting pharmacists use their degree.

PharmacistsCAN — launched for Pharmacy Appreciation Month — is a direct call to provincial governments to close the gap between what pharmacists are trained to do and what they're actually authorized to do. File it. It's a useful line the next time someone asks why you can't just handle something straightforward.

🔢 NOTABLE NUMBERS

$900K — Michael Green's total 2024-25 compensation as CEO of Canada Health Infoway: $616K base salary, $215K in bonuses, $51K in benefits. For a program that moved 5% of prescriptions. The organization also spent $418K on executive travel in under three years — none of which explained the 5%.

1.98 million — Ontarians currently without a regular primary care provider, down from 2.5 million — though part of that drop came from quietly changing how "unattached" is counted. The government's 2029 target: everyone connected. The pharmacist workforce projection: 3,200 short by 2034. Someone's math doesn't close.

19 → 33 — the number of minor ailments Ontario pharmacists could already treat before today's announcement. July adds 14 more, bringing the total to 33. BC got there years ago. Ontario eventually caught up.

🔬 THE EVIDENCE

Studies worth your time. We flagged the old ones.

Ontario's UTI data is in — and it's exactly what we expected, with one catch.

Since January 2023, Ontario pharmacists have been prescribing for UTIs under the minor ailments program. A December 2025 ICES interrupted time series study (Leung et al., BMJ Open, 2025) analysed all of 2023–2024: pharmacists submitted over 1.47 million minor ailment claims, with UTIs making up 34% of them — the single biggest category. Pharmacist prescribing of eligible urinary antibiotics in women increased by 33.3 per 1,000 person-years while physician prescribing dropped by 23.3. The net result: a modest overall increase of 10.1 per 1,000, meaning pharmacists captured demand that wasn't getting to a physician at all. The catch flagged by Public Health Ontario: overall antibiotic use went up slightly, which warrants watching from an antimicrobial stewardship standpoint. The program is working. Eyes open.

Canada is short 1,600 pharmacists. The gap could double by 2034.

Per a Health Canada workforce report, the shortage could reach 3,200 within a decade. Expanded scope without an expanded workforce is math that doesn't close — and rural and Indigenous communities absorb the sharpest end of it. Live projections at hhr-rhs.ca.

THE PICK

What we're actually into this week

🎧 Listen: The Acquired podcast's Novo Nordisk episode. Five hours on how the company that made the drug everyone at your counter is asking about actually got built. Start it on your commute. It will permanently change how you read every semaglutide headline.

🎬 Watch: The Bear (Disney+). A show about a high-functioning professional drowning in system failures, impossible volume, and a pace that never quits. It's not about a pharmacy. And yet.

💡 Try: Monarch Money — budgeting that actually works with Canadian banks. If you're a pharmacy owner still running your cash flow in a 2019 Excel file, this is the intervention. Free trial.

💬 COUNTER TALK

One observation. No citations needed.

The most accessible healthcare professional in the country: no appointment, no referral, no door. A doctor closes a door. A dentist closes a door. We got a counter, a smile, and direct eye contact with patient number 48 while we're still verifying script 47. Costco figured it out. Just saying.

😂 MEME OF THE WEEK

Because burnout is real and memes are free.