John Musil, PharmD
Alumnus, Class of 1994
John Musil started at the bottom of the barrel and climbed his way to the top.
After honing an interest in pharmacy while doing odd jobs for a pharmacy in Phoenix, Musil got his PharmD from The University of Arizona College of Pharmacy in 1994.
After a short stint of clinical pharmacy practice in Washington, D.C., following graduation, Musil returned to Phoenix where he soon purchased The Apothecary Shop in 1996.
After 13 years, Musil is the chief operating officer of 15 Apothecary Shops in Arizona, California, Nevada, Utah and Ohio. He is proud of the way they practice pharmacy.
“I wanted to mix the clinical and community aspects of pharmacy,” Musil said in an interview with the Arizona Republic, a major Phoenix newspaper. “When Nordstrom came to town, I really liked their service aspect of ‘We’re here for you.’ We adapted that to our store.”
Musil’s pharmacies are specialty pharmacies and offer care options stretching beyond traditional community pharmacy. Some of The Apothecary Shops, which were among the first two pharmacies accredited by the Pharmacy Compounding Accreditation Board in 2006, specialize in special-need medications ranging from multiple sclerosis and kidney transplants to HIV/AIDS and fertility disorders, and niches like sports medicine, women’s health, oncology, chronic pain management and veterinary care.
“We decided a few years ago that it was necessary for us to focus our efforts into 10 areas of excellence in order to differentiate our practices,” Musil says. “By becoming clinically sound in those 10 areas and allowing other pharmacies to focus on general practice, we found our differentiator.”
Doctors, nurses and veterinarians alike refer patients to Musil’s pharmacies.
“There is nothing better than receiving a phone call from a practitioner thanking you for taking such good care of their patients,” Musil says. “It gives me the confidence that our pharmacists are making a difference in the community. I love it when I am introduced to someone at a party and they relay a story to me of how wonderfully they were taken care of by one of our pharmacists.”
When he’s not busy working at the forefront of Arizona’s pharmacy business, Musil enjoys reading, fishing, hunting, cooking, golf and spending time with his wife and four children.
In 2006, the Arizona Small Business Association named The Apothecary Shop one of the Top 50 Companies to Watch and awarded it the Competitive Clout Award. In 2007 it was ranked No. 4337 on the Inc. 5000 Index of the fastest growing private companies in America.