POCATELLO — The formation of a limited liability corporation, or LLC, by the ISU Foundation to run a pharmacy on the Pocatello campus was unanimously approved by the State Board of Education last week.

    It's called Bengal Pharmacy and it is designed to bring the real world of the pharmacy business and education at Idaho State University's College of Pharmacy together.

    “I think it's a milestone,” said ISU Foundation executive committee member Doug Sayer of Blackfoot. “We've worked hard to create opportunities for the university to generate revenue through business opportunities.”

    Efforts will begin with Bengal Pharmacy taking over the pharmacy operations at the ISU Student Health Center in May. However, the larger goal is to help under-served rural areas throughout the state provide better pharmaceutical services.

    At the core of the project are students enrolled in the College of Pharmacy.

    “We are really the educational component to it,” said College of Pharmacy Dean Paul Cady. “We're really talking about a whole new model.”

    Pharmacy professor Rex Force has been working on the formation of Bengal Pharmacy with members of the university foundation for more than a year.

    “We also think there's research possibilities too,” Force said.

    With students and faculty using the Student Health Services pharmacy as both classroom lab and real world pharmacy, Cady and Force said the outcomes will expand opportunities to understand the complexities of delivering services to rural pockets of under-served patients and also give the university and corporate partners a chance to work with the unique population of a university.

    Bengal Pharmacy at ISU will serve students and faculty, but also help lower social-economic groups through a partnership with Health West. Health West is a non-profit community health center with clinics in Pocatello, Aberdeen, American Falls, Downey, Lava Hot Springs and McCammon.

    “It allows us more flexibility in creating a lab for teaching and learning,” Force said.

    Because many of the patients are lower income, Force said the Bengal Pharmacy will provide students with knowledge of working with subsidized medical programs like Medicaid, Medicare and 340B plans. The 340B program provides outpatient drugs to eligible health care organizations and covered entities at significantly reduced prices which are passed on to customers.

    Beginning with the next fall semester, Bengal Pharmacy plans to expand hours at the Student Health Center on campus and be open on Saturday's. Currently the pharmacy on campus is open only noon to 5 p.m., five days a week.

    Dean Cady said he is hoping the pharmacy initially will provide “clerkship” experiences for eight to 10 fourth-year pharmacy students. ISU's program provides its students with a professional doctorate in pharmacy. It currently has 280 students enrolled and accepts about 70 new students per year — most of whom have already earned a bachelor's degree.

    Real world experience is one of the requirements for graduation.

    “These programs are common in rural areas,” Force said about university outreach services. “It builds expertise for retail and hospital pharmacy. We view this role to be an important one for the university to be a resource to the state.”

    Force said running Bengal Pharmacy will help prepare students by giving them management and business skills in addition to pharmacy training.

    Dean Cady said the strategic goal is to help provide rural areas with better health care.

    “We're really thrilled about the opportunity,” Cady said.

    Vice president of ISU's Administration Advancement and ISU Foundation board member Kent Tingey said the foundation has worked hard to get an LLC approved.

    “It's the first time the foundation has been actively engaged in a business,” Tingey said.

    Any profits generated by the operation of the pharmacy on campus will go back to the university's College of Pharmacy.

    To get the project rolling, the university first had to convince the SBOE that the business venture was not violating any state bylaws. Associate general counsel for the university, Darlene Gerry spearheaded the legal effort.

    “We looked at what a lot of universities do when they offer services and clinics,” Gerry said.

    Gerry said the University of Idaho offers a number of legal clinics so its law school students can get real experience and LLCs are operated by the University of Utah and Arizona State University foundations.

    The university attorney said the ISU Foundation has a lot of members with a business background and the idea of starting Bengal Pharmacy appealed to them because “it's more focused.”

    “Now we need to make it work,” Gerry said.