This story appears in the September–October 2026 issue of Dispense Times.
By Bruce Kneeland, Independent Pharmacy Specialist
“It’s easy to convert cash into inventory… the challenge is converting inventory back into cash.” — Dave Belinski, President, Datarithm
While walking the exhibit hall at an industry trade show earlier this year, I stopped by a booth for a company I knew nothing about. There I met Dave Belinski, President of Datarithm.
What started as a casual conversation turned into one of the highlights of the conference. Belinski walked me through the full picture of the importance of inventory control and I learned, there’s more to it than I expected. He then told me he had created a way to use technology to help pharmacies handle pieces of the puzzle not currently being addressed by other vendors.
Let’s start at the beginning:
Ordering the Right Quantity at the Right Time
The first piece is helping a pharmacy buy the right product, in the right quantity, at the right time. This is where Datarithm’s Forecast Engine comes in — automated demand forecasting that continuously updates reorder points based on actual dispensing volume, rather than static par levels.
Industry metrics suggest many pharmacies aren’t getting the full benefit of tools like this. The NCPA Digest by Cardinal Health reports an industry average inventory turnover rate of roughly 12 times per year. By comparison, pharmacies using Datarithm’s automated forecasting achieve upwards of 18 to 19 turns. That’s a difference that can represent tens of thousands of dollars in freed-up cash flow that would otherwise sit idle on a shelf.
Purchasing at the Best Price
Buying at the right price has been a top priority for pharmacy owners since the first operating pharmacy. It’s the driving force behind most of what fills a trade show floor.
Companies of all sorts promise to help you save money, and computer-supported procurement tools have become a standard part of that effort. By integrating directly with a pharmacy management system (PMS), these platforms analyze real-time pricing across multiple wholesalers and secondary vendors and point buyers to lower-cost options.
Spreading purchases across two or more suppliers can lower a pharmacy’s overall cost of goods sold (COGS), and it’s a sound strategy.
Balancing What You Already Have
Datarithm’s Balance Engine handles two things: returning eligible product to the wholesaler within credit windows, and moving overstock between a pharmacy’s own locations (store-to-store transfer) when a sister store can use it. Layer in cycle counting to keep the on-hand numbers accurate and reporting/analytics to keep owners informed, and that’s the full toolset Datarithm built its reputation on — forecasting, wholesaler returns, transfers, counting, and reporting, all working together to keep inventory turning and cash from sitting idle.
The Gap That Remained
Here’s what I didn’t expect: even with all of that working well, there is still a major problem.
Pharmacies still end up with product that had nowhere to go. Items deemed ineligible for wholesaler return, as well as items that couldn’t be moved to another store. That’s dead stock — inventory that hasn’t been dispensed in four-plus months, with no return or transfer option available — and until recently, the only outlet for it was a traditional reverse distributor.
Traditional return-goods services simplify the physical handling of expired or overstocked product, but that convenience comes with a cost: credit values and processing timelines can be unpredictable, and final credit amounts often fall short of expectations, with little insight into how the number was reached.
“While our Wholesaler Return and Transfer features provide strong results for pharmacies, we saw the need to apply additional pressure on inventory that wasn’t being addressed with these functions — namely, dead stock,” Belinski told me.
A Separate Solution: The Liquidation Engine
To close that gap the company built something new — not an extension of the existing forecasting or balancing tools, but a distinct feature developed in partnership with Rx Direct Solutions (rxdirectsolutions.com), called the Liquidation Engine. Its sole job is finding value in the dead stock that has already been ruled out for wholesaler return or transfer.
Here’s how it works:
- Scan and identify. A quick QR scan captures the item’s lot, serial, and expiration details.
- Instant eligibility check. Rx Direct Solutions maintains a comprehensive, continuously updated database of manufacturer return policies. Liquidation Engine checks each item against that database and tells you exactly when — or whether — it qualifies for manufacturer return, no manual cross-referencing required.
- See the credit before you commit. Eligible items get a real-time, transparent credit estimate based on NADAC, so pharmacy owners know what to expect up front, rather than waiting weeks to find out.
- A complete return kit, generated automatically. Return authorization, shipping label, and debit memo are produced for you — no assembling paperwork by hand.
- Faster credit. Credits typically arrive in 45 to 60 days, up to nine months sooner than a traditional reverse distributor, with lower fees.
- A built-in guarantee. If the credit actually received comes in below the original estimate, Datarithm refunds the difference in fees.
- Audit-ready tracking. Every return is automatically logged, giving owners a clean record without extra staff time.
Rethinking Reverse Logistics
Next, Datarithm finalized a partnership with InStockRx (instockrx.com), joining its existing partnership with Rx Direct Solutions as the second path inside the Liquidation Engine. The Rx Direct Solutions path gets dead stock back to the manufacturer, InStockRx adds a marketplace outlet for items that don’t have a fast path to manufacturer return.
Here’s how the two connect: when a pharmacy scans an item to check its manufacturer-return date through Rx Direct Solutions and the result comes back with an extended wait, that same item can be listed for sale on InStockRx directly from the Datarithm platform, through an embedded interface — so staff never have to toggle between systems to post a listing. This path is typically for brand drugs; controlled substances aren’t part of it.
The interface with InStockRx also works in the other direction: beyond helping pharmacies sell short-dated surplus, Datarithm alerts customers when other pharmacies have posted inventory on InStockRx at prices substantially below wholesaler cost. The marketplace itself is fully DSCSA-compliant, so pharmacies can buy and sell without adding a compliance burden on top of the cash-recovery benefit. The goal, as Belinski put it, is to close the loop on the entire inventory lifecycle — from the first order to the last dollar recovered.
To me, the returned-goods process — supported by a fairly large number of established companies — always looked mature: a necessary cost of doing business, managed through well-known channels.
What’s changed my mind is seeing the shape of what Belinski has built. He walked me through this as a three-legged stool — purchasing, ordering, and returns management — but what the Liquidation Engine really represents is a fourth leg. It doesn’t replace or fold into the other three; it extends Datarithm’s reach into surplus and dead inventory well beyond what forecasting, wholesaler returns, and store-to-store transfers were ever built to solve on their own. Add the InStockRx partnership, and that leg gets sturdier still — giving pharmacies both a way to sell what they can’t use and a way to buy what they need at a discount, all from the same platform.
“This new service introduces a practical return to manufacturer option. It provides a level of transparency never offered before — substantially larger return credits with lower fees, and much faster credit timelines than return vendors,” Belinski said. “This is a game-changer for independent pharmacies.”
Anyone curious about how the Liquidation Engine’s fee structure works is welcome to contact Datarithm directly — their information can be found in the ad published in this issue of Dispense Times.
