Dayton’s Avenue Pharmacy is permanently closing after over 20 years in business.
Located at 201 6th Avenue in Dayton, Avenue Pharmacy will close for good on May 6. The business started in 2002. All prescription files are being transferred to the pharmacy inside the Bellevue Kroger.
Avenue Pharmacy announced its closure in a Facebook post on the business’s page.
“This isn’t just a business closing — it feels like saying goodbye to a second family,” read the post. “For over two decades, we’ve had the privilege of being part of your lives — celebrating your milestones, supporting you through illnesses, and doing our best to be a place you could always count on for a helping hand and a kind word.”
Alex Niemer, a pharmacist at Avenue, said business has been tough for independent pharmacies in recent years, attributing fees from Pharmacy Benefit Managers as a factor.
“It certainly has,” he told LINK nky. “There’s been under reimbursements from PBMs. I think that story is pretty well out there. DIR fees — it’s been tough.”
Pharmaceutical trade organizations like the National Community Pharmacists Association have criticized Direct and Indirect Remuneration fees charged by PBMs as a primary reason for independently owned pharmacies in underserved areas closing. PBMs are often maligned for prioritizing profit over patient care.
Avenue Pharmacy’s closure announcement comes just hours after Newport Drug Center, another independently owned pharmacy, announced that it, too, was closing shop.
Avenue Pharmacy joins a growing list of Northern Kentucky-based independently owned pharmacies that have closed in recent years, including Fort Thomas Drug Center, Ludlow Pharmacy and Alexandria Drugs.
“It’s been really an honor and a great part of my life,” Niemer said. “I speak for everybody saying this — being able to serve them and get to know them over the last 16 years since I’ve been here.”
