48 I’ve always been entrepreneurial. During my college years, I worked in home-infusion pharmacies and saw a problem I thought I could help solve, which was providing on-call services on weeknights and weekends. I originally opened the company as a staffing agency for those companies, and then Judy and I became quite popular among a few companies as the “on- call pharmacist and intern team.” Several years ago, we expanded to bring modern pharmacy services to Latin America. This newer version has existed for five years, and it went from an idea and 2 people in a small office to 52 employees, multiple specialty pharmacies, wholesalers, infusion suites, and administrative offices in 11 countries. There are huge disparities in health care and pharmacy practice in Latin America. There are some countries in this region where the concept of dispensing a prescription does not even exist. Data from the Pan American Health Organization suggests that 50 percent of all prescriptions are either wrongly prescribed or wrongly dispensed. When I was 14, I was recruited for a four-year program at the Polytechnic Institute of Chemistry of Havana in Cuba, where they taught high school and industrial pharmacy technician courses at the same time, with the option to become a pharmaceutical chemist in the future while working in the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals. So, my introduction to the field was kind of circumstantial. I moved from Cuba to South Florida in 1998 and was committed to going to pharmacy school. I worked hard to complete all my prerequisites by 2001, and I got accepted on the first try. It was the biggest accomplishment of my life at the time. I only applied to NSU’s pharmacy school, as I thought it was the best. I met my wife Judy on the first day of pharmacy school after it was announced where everyone had done their undergraduate studies. I heard she was from the University of Havana, so I saw her, marked where she was sitting (third row, second seat), and introduced myself during the first break. We became best friends and fell in love. Meet a Latin America Transfomer MIKE RIZO, PHARM.D., M.B.A., CDR, CPH (’05) CEO, PharmCare Services Barry and Judy Silverman College of Pharmacy Since establishing PharmCare Services in South Florida in 2005, Mike Rizo has led a corporate expansion that now includes 52 employees and a network of more than 60,000 pharmacies and trained personnel in various countries throughout Latin America. The company focuses on three primary pillars: pharmaceutical benefits administration for international payers; complex therapy management, with a strong emphasis on immunotherapy; and functional/ integrative medicine. Shark Encounters
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