Introduction

Prior to launching Union Pharmacy, Dr. Xiaoyan Qin, PharmD, spent 15 years as a pharmacist and pharmacy manager for a national chain. Driven by a passion for patient care, but frustrated with corporate metrics that limited care, she often wondered to her husband, Dr. Jeff Gruneich, PhD, What if I could do this differently…?

Complementing Xiaoyan’s detailed understanding of pharmacy finance and operations, Jeff’s background as a bioengineer, biotech entrepreneur and technology and product management at IBM, Roche, and MathWorks, rounded out a unique toolkit for pharmacy innovation. The question became more focused: What if the patient-pharmacist relationship formed the core of the business and everything else supported that mission?

What followed was a leap into independent pharmacy ownership that would test their partnership, push them to innovate during a pandemic, and ultimately lead them to create SimpLED – a pharmacy will call solution that’s now available to help pharmacies across the country.

In this episode, Dr. Qin and Dr. Gruneich take us through the journey from opening the first Union Pharmacy location in July 2019—just six months before COVID-19 changed everything—to now operating four successful locations in the Boston area. They share how necessity became the mother of invention when they couldn’t find an affordable will-call system that met their needs, leading them to develop SimpLED, an automation tool that’s transformed their operations and enhanced their customer’s pharmacy experience.

This is a story about listening to your community, playing to your strengths as partners, and refusing to accept “that’s just how it’s done” as an answer. Whether you’re considering pharmacy ownership, struggling with operational bottlenecks, or simply looking for inspiration on how to stand out in today’s competitive landscape, Dr. Qin and Dr. Gruneich’s practical wisdom and innovative spirit offer valuable lessons for independent pharmacy owners everywhere.

Interview

Sonja Pagniano: Welcome to the Script Your Future podcast, as we gear up for the upcoming NCPA Convention we are excited to bring you Xiaoyan Qin, a pharmacy owner from Massachusetts with over two decades of pharmacy and pharmacy manager experience, and Jeff Gruneich, her husband and tech afficionado. Jeff brings a background in technology, marketing, product management, and sales, as their pharmacy locations grew, so did his involvement in supporting Xiaoyan’s pharmacies. Xiaoyan and Jeff – welcome to the podcast! How are you guys?

Xiaoyan: Doing good.

Jeff: Glad to be here. Thank you.

Sonja: So tell us a little bit about where you guys are located so that people have kind of an idea of the spot in Massachusetts that you’re in.Xiaoyan: Yes, my name is Xiaoyan, I’m the owner of Union Pharmacy. I’ve been working as a pharmacist for 20 years. Currently, we have four Union Pharmacies located at the Newton Center, Newtonville, Meaden, and Belmont. So, pretty much like outside of Boston area.

Sonja: Great. Xiaoyan, take us back to 2019, when you opened your first pharmacy, maybe even a bit before, because I know you were working in chains and that experience can be much different. What shaped your vision for what the pharmacy would become from your time there?Xioayan: As a pharmacist, I always want to build a very trustable relationship between pharmacists and the patient. So when I worked at big chain, I feel this mission is kind of hard to achieve. And then says [to Jeff], you know, I feel I can’t accomplish the mission I want to accomplish when I work at the big chain. What do you think? You know, do you think that we can afford to open a pharmacy? Jeff: Yeah, I mean I think so. To give a little bit of background about myself, Xiaoyan would come home, we’d talk about pharmacy since she graduated, her PharmD degree. And during that time, I was basically working for technology companies in a global sales role for IBM, as an entrepreneur in stem cells, and as in a couple of other technology companies and product and technology marketing. And we would have these conversations about how do I, I feel like I’m sort of… controlled by the corporate system to hit all these metrics, which are useful, but I think I can do better if I really prioritize the relationship that I have with a customer. And one at a time, I’m helping that patient one at a time. And you know, she’s got a background of entrepreneurship in her family. And I had kind of taken several years in entrepreneurship and she was a stable one. And you know, she’s got a background of entrepreneurship in her family. And I had kind of taken several years in entrepreneurship and she was a stable one. And it looked like the right time to sort of jump around 2018 for us to switch roles and for me to be the stable one in the sort of corporate world whilst we hopped into entrepreneurship and started the first location in actually July of 2019 was when the doors opened.Sonja: Okay, so Xiaoyan, tell me what made you confident enough then to expand from one location to several others? You guys have four locations right? So, like what had to be in place for all of that to happen?

Xiaoyan: First thing you need to have… what you focus on and then your team need to all agree on the same vision is – patient, pharmacist, relationship, as I mentioned before. So you have a good team and then you need to have a good like workflow. You also need to listen to your customer what they want. So once you have all those core elements in place, and then you, then look at the market, and then where you lead to. So that’s why we, after two years on Newton Center location, we expanded to Newtonville location, which is about 15 minutes drive away from the Newton Center to take care of another side of the Newton area residence. After 2 years, that’s the Needham location we opened up. And another year is in Belmont.Sonja: I feel like that’s a lot of pharmacies in a short period of time. How did you guys go about doing that? I feel like there has to be a lot of rush and excitement in what you guys are working on for that to be happening.

Xiaoyan: Yes. Yes, that’s lots of hustle. And also…

Jeff: I think we have to go back in time to 2019 and what was happening in 2019.

Sonja: Oh- yeah.

Jeff: The first location opened in July and we basically had six months to run until COVID hit and I think the way that I got the most involved with her at that point is I was really looking at financial details every day. Are we on plan? Are we hitting what we need to? Are we – are our purchase costs in line with something that lets us operate? You know, are there other products we can offer? And from the very beginning it was listening to what your customers are asking for and trying to give them what they’re asking for. And that took us into, I’d say, the beginning of COVID. And COVID just put a lot of stress on the business. I think COVID kind of gave us the chance to innovate very quickly in a way that wouldn’t have happened if we didn’t have COVID, right?Xiaoyan: Yeah.

Jeff: Like, take them back to that was happening in 2019.Xiaoyan: So I think that because, because I’m Chinese, I have a relationship with wholesale in China. I’m pretty much the first pharmacy that have a masks. So we sell some, we donate some. That’s really open up our door to all the customers.Jeff: Yeah, I think we could see, we were looking, it’s my background in biotechnology, we could see COVID was gonna overrun and overwhelm the US. And so, what do we need to do to prepare for that? And, you know, working with some friends, we literally stockpiled probably 100,000 masks. We started providing, I was looking around for, you know, 40 liter gallons or 40 liter bottles of ethanol. We were compounding ethanol.Sonja: Oh my god, haha.

Xiaoyan: Hand sanitizer.

Jeff: We were hustling at that point, because the community needed us. We were friends with the Mayor of Newton. And at that, basically, essentially at that point when things started to shut down, then I think it really sharpened our, you know, our senses into how do we take care of people the best.

Xiaoyan: And really plugged us into this community.

Jeff: So for example, another thing that we did was we listened really carefully that we needed to have a vaccine, I mean, a diagnostic test that was prior to the diagnostic test. So we reached out to a company in Cambridge to be a really early channel for them to do their CLIA-based diagnostic tests. So we had lines of people out the door trying to get tested to see if they had COVID or not, for example.

7:45 And that also showed that we’re going to listen to what is needed and where our community wants and try to give them that the best that we could.

Sonja: Something that I’m hearing as a thread in this is that you guys are really good at connecting, like connecting different supplies to different issues, to the different needs of your community…connecting resources in your community to each other so that patients have access to something new and necessary, especially in a moment, you know, where it’s like a crisis. I think that’s so exceptional for independent pharmacy owners to do. And I think it’s what makes it unique, right?

Xiaoyan: Yes, I think the difference between us and with big chain is we always listen to our customers and then we also, you know really plug us in into the community.

8:58 I think the pharmacy actually create a community.

That’s why we, you know just do so many amazing thing is to just make sure our community is healthy and then the healthcare is accessible to all of us.Sonja: How do you two balance the partnership then between like an entrepreneurial vision and operational execution? I think it’s so difficult because entrepreneurs often tend to be visionaries. They also are very creative in how they solve problems. But there’s a lot to say for like having consistency in operations and staff like to depend on that kind of consistency. So how do you balance that? How are you guys partners in that? Tell me a little bit about that.

Jeff: Yeah, I mean, I would say Xiaoyan obviously understands the pharmacy world extremely well. She is very, very fast in the store. You know, she knows all aspects of the business. She knows how to deal with patients really well. She knows how to help them with their insurance. She’s great at working with physicians and suppliers. And I think the place where I sort of compliment that is either getting deeper into the details of a complex problem that she doesn’t have the bandwidth to look at or thinking more strategically about what do things look like six months to twelve months down the road. I think that’s how they complement each other well.Xiaoyan: I think that we make a dream team. Like I’m good at something. And then like when Jeff’s good at those details, it’s not really I do that, like other computer wise, right? And then I think we make a great team and we listen to each other and then we respect each other.

Jeff: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s not easy to start a location from scratch, especially in the early parts where you’re kind of wondering, you know, is this location going to turn around and we’re going to be making more than we’re spending? And so in that point of time, when you’re kind of at the bottom of your curve, you should have a financial plan. Like how long is it going to take me to get this business to turn around? What’s going to be my lowest point? Like am I capitalized properly that I know I’m not profitable yet, but on my own track to turn that around to get to profitability and be patient with that. And things aren’t going to work the way that you want. Maybe your finances aren’t quite the way that you want, or you have time demands or making work-life balance trade-offs between who’s going to take the kids to a practice.Sonja: Oh, sure.

Jeff: Just sort of the ability to sort of change up roles as needed and be okay with that and a little bit forgiving of each other because the big picture is there. You just tactically, you have some issues you need to work through and it might be a little bit messy and that’s, you have to be prepared for that.

Sonja: But I think that’s a big part of entrepreneurism. It is messy. It’s not just a clean, like, this is what I’m doing, this is it. I’m sure every day is probably different. So let’s talk about your will call product, SimpLED, that has generated some excitement. What problem were you trying to solve with it when you developed it?

Xiaoyan: The problem is, I can’t find the bags. Haha – I don’t know… in a pharmacy, you know, imagine, I have lines of people coming for vaccines, a line of people coming for pickup. And then oftentimes, is the patient, they don’t feel the same day. Sometimes, after two days, doctor calling another prescription. So, they are in the different location, different bags. So, when people come in, I need to look in for alphabetical order to find the bag.

You know, if you can’t find the bag in front of that patient, that’s bad. So, I need to find the solution is how I can consolidate all their bags in one location. And then, how quickly we can locate that bag? This is my major task, and I need to fix that will call lane, so everything goes fast, people in and out fast.

Sonja: So then, you guys created SimpLED?

Xiaoyan: We looked, I couldn’t find any solutions in my budget.

Sonja: Okay.

Xiaoyan: Jeff, I said, this is my budget, and can you find something for me? And Jeff find a bunch of companies, they all, how many times, 10 times…?

Jeff: Well, not 10 times, but it definitely more expensive than….Xiaoyan: I cannot afford.

Jeff: Think about what the problem is worth is how much time does it cost your technicians or how much revenue are you losing? Because you filled something too late or just think about the total cost of the problem. We couldn’t find any…

Xiaoyan: So I told Jeff, my budget is $10,000. It’s a $10,000 problem. And then, he looked – he couldn’t find any solution for me.

Jeff: What that means is it has to be very- so background in IBM and working for tech companies, if you want that, it needs to be a very focused solution.

Sonja: Ah okay, no bells and whistles type of thing.

Jeff: If there are three problems, I need to be able to find prescriptions very quickly. I need to be able to find consolidated prescriptions very quickly. I need to check my return to stop…And I don’t need integrations. I don’t need a bunch of security that’s unnecessary. I don’t need to tie into my pharmacy management system or provide redundant functions that my pharmacy management system already has. And that’s where, that’s really where SimpLED is. It’s quite…

Xiaoyan: So, I told Jeff, this is my three things: find the bag quickly, day 14 quickly, and then consolidate the bag. That’s all my three things, and they gave me something $10,000, that’s my budget.

Sonja: Oh my god, haha.

Xiaoyan: He couldn’t find it, and then say let’s build it.Jeff: Yeah, well, let’s build it for us.

Xiaoyan: Build for us. Build for me.

Jeff: We have four locations, let’s meet. We basically built that out, and this past year, and what we found was, well…

Xiaoyan: That saved my pharmacy.

Jeff: Yeah, it helps.

Xiaoyan: I tell you now, my workflows, I only need one technician, so she or his job is find the bag. And then, you know when patient come here, they do pick up really quickly. Everything is the one one bag. And then also the same technician can process the vaccine and they send it to the vaccination room, the pharmacist to give out the vaccine. That’s our workflow. They don’t interrupt anything because everything is just so efficient. It’s right there.

Sonja: It sounds like it really exceeded your expectations. I mean – I feel like this is what I want and it sounds like —

Xiaoyan: My patients sent me – They said this is an awesome solution, and that’s a…

Jeff: I think it was our patients coming to us saying, it’s very obvious that you’re investing in taking care of us. The turnaround time is very short and I can see that the SimpLED sensor buzzing right in front of me. And so you obviously care about me. And so, and that drives our word of mouth. They tell their friends, which makes us more busy, which like, and then we’re able to use this system to basically double the capacity of our of our pickup area. So I mean, think about the pickup area, really it’s, this is the place for any pharmacy, if you’re dispensing prescriptions, this is the place where your pharmacy interfaces with your community. And as you bring more people into that line or more people are coming to see you, you need to be able to solve that break point very, very fast. And essentially you’re putting, the more prescriptions you have or the more people walk in for a vaccine, the more likely it is that that’s going to fail because some of — you’re putting your technicians in charge of your interface with your community. And so this is a perfect task for automation. Multiple lookups of alphabetical things over and over again in a structured order is perfect for automation.

Xiaoyan: Yeah, and then my, the people coming for vaccine and they will say, wow, this is very, very different. And then you definitely make your pharmacy stand out.

Jeff: Yeah, they transfer. They transfer.

Xiaoyan: Yeah.

Sonja: Oh, sure, because then that patient experience is really even better than anywhere else.

Jeff: Which really gets back to the mission of the business, which is to put the patient-pharmacist relationship at the center of the business and to put systems and processes and people in place to make that, to execute that mission.

Xiaoyan: And then your employees happy, your technician happy.

Jeff: Much happier.

Xiaoyan: And then the pharmacist never get pulled out, says, where’s another bag? So the pharmacist, yeah, pharmacist can focus on what they are doing. If they don’t never pulled away says, you know, help me find a bag.

Jeff: I would say higher value tasks. They’re talking to a physician or they’re consulting a patient or they’re doing MTM or they’re doing. you know, a blister pack or something that’s more high value that requires a pharmacist training and time.

Sonja: So let’s pretend I am a pharmacy tech working in your pharmacy. What does my day look like using SimpLED? Like, do I have to make sure something’s charged? Do I have to, like, make sure all of the things have their like what – What all kind of goes into that from a pharmacy staff perspective?

Xiaoyan: It’s the technician, let’s say in the old time, the technician do not like to do pickup because the pickup can be lots of stress because they, oh, I can’t find a bag.

Jeff: Especially when there’s a line.

Xiaoyan: Yeah, especially the line and people look at you, still, you know, especially those are S, SH and you can’t find it because they’re low. Yeah, you’re bending down, don’t look at every bag.

Jeff: Then you can’t find it. Phone’s ringing.

Xiaoyan: And then now my technician love to do pickup.

Jeff: It makes them look like a rock star. They log up to the patient and you say, what’s your name? And then they find it instantly and then they can check out. And if it gets too long, then you can bring another technician up. We have two points of sale, two point of sales in that store. And so then both of those can be operating and then another person can manage the queue. So we don’t get lines longer than two or three people.

Like if it starts to get that long, people drop what they’re doing, the techs will drop what they’re doing, and they come to the front store. Really, it’s pretty simple. They’re basically linking the, after the pharmacist fills it, they’re linking the prescription to the sensor and then putting it in the bag. And if another prescription comes up, they’re adding that prescription to the same bag so the patient is consolidated.

Laura (Union Pharmacy Team Member): We link prescriptions by using the scanner to scan the prescription label, and then we scan the sensor.

Jeff: And then when the patient shows up, then you just call their prescription and check out.

Laura: When a patient comes to pick up a prescription…We use the scanner to search for their name and data of birth. We then hit the call button and the sensor lights up in the will call area. We go find it, we unbind the prescriptions, and ring out the patient.

Day 10 and day 14 return to stocks are really easy now. You can just search for all of them all at once. Each sensor lights up, and you can go and pull them from the will call bin.

Jeff: …and check out. So it’s very fast.

Sonja: It sounds so stress-free. Like it sounds really nice.

Xiaoyan: Oh – stress free! And then just they love to do pickup now because they can, they show the technician, they’re very proud. And then the patient just says, I never see this thing anywhere. Yeah, they love it.

Jeff: I think it solved another problem for us – which it can be hard to find technicians, especially in Boston who want to work at the salary that we want to pay them. And so this basically what this does is this makes them more efficient. And so we had a few of them also get their vaccine certification so they can manage the front end as well as doing some vaccines. So now we can pay them a little more and they’re happier.Xiaoyan: Yeah.

Sonja: Oh, that’s awesome. So it also helps with retention.Xiaoyan: Yes. Sonja: That’s really nice. So I understand you guys have also some robotic systems that you’ve incorporated. How does those systems compare to SimpLED and how it’s made things more efficient and fun, I guess, and stress-free for your pharmacy?Xiaoyan: I think we just did the total, let’s say automation, we did the total three, 3 automation. One is the production. We introducedParata. For fast movers, it will make the drug really like a, faster production.

Jeff: It automates the production so the pharmacist can focus on other things.

Xiaoyan: Yes, and then we did the Liberty software because they have templates of the vaccines. So really it made the vaccine process more efficient.

Jeff: I’d say for us, we did a vendor selection and they were really good at our workflow for data entry and billing of a patient for vaccines. So for our business, it made sense and Liberty’s been great for us for that. So the third one is the SimpLED.

Xiaoyan: The SimpLED is definitely. It’s a transformational… will call being the front store checkout. This is just like a make our pharmacy, union pharmacy like a standout.

Jeff: I’d say probably doubled our productivity in the front.

Xiaoyan: Yeah. The technician is just like, empower our technician can do other stuff.

Jeff: Yeah, if you find… I’d say before our technicians, they would be tired. They would not want to jump into a line. And that like, well, maybe they don’t want to answer the phone.

Xiaoyan: But now is.

Jeff: It changed their attitude around. I think I can help people and they’ll jump in and it and people perceive that almost immediately when they come in.

Sonja: So what does independent pharmacy mean to you guys in 2025 today? I know there’s a lot of things impacting the profession. I know a lot of people are down with it, but I’d love to hear, aside from obviously putting the patient first and that patient experience, what does that mean to you to be an independently owned community pharmacy?

Xiaoyan: I, as a pharmacist, I always, you know – you need to open your mind and then listen to your customer and listen to your patient. So like this year, we reach our schools, so we reach our many long-term care. So we offer service to them. So yeah, so don’t really just think about what you can do in the pharmacy. You really need to think outside the pharmacy is what you can do for your community. And once you do that and people see it and people feel it and the people will talk about you.

Jeff: Yeah, I would say you have on our monthly meeting with our PICs, we have sort of in-store, how’s the front store look? How does your dispensing look? How your vaccines look? What is your long-term care or your sort of compliance packaging look like? But out of the store, are you, what activities are you working on? How are you reaching out to the local community to help them either understand what they need, or deliver on what they need. And different places are going to be different. Like we’re…

We’re in a sort of, niche in the Northeast and there’s a mindset that and a density of people that’s not going to be the same everywhere. So I would encourage you to explore what that is in your local area.

Xiaoyan: Yeah, we do a lot of community service. Like I will go to like some gym and we give them what’s it called blood pressure [measurements]… I give them like, you know, we check their blood pressure after they work out. It’s like all free service, you just want to be out there and then show people you care about them.

Jeff: I would say another thing, I just big, big, big picture. I don’t want to say too much here, but advocacy, sort of your local state laws are really important and a lot of things are changing right now. I think a lot of states are waking up to making competition more fair for all pharmacies and be involved in that to the extent you feel comfortable. It’s important.

Sonja: Xiaoyan, what advice would you give to other pharmacists, especially women who are considering ownership, but maybe they feel intimidated by taking the leap?

Xiaoyan: 25:16 Many people, you know, says, follow your heart. So I don’t really follow my heart. I want to do is what you’re good at. So if you’re good at making connections, you’re good at building relationship, do that. As a pharmacy owner, business owner, you need to really open your heart and then really think of what you’re good at, right? For me, is I like to go out of my way to reach out to the people, to do the connection, to you know, make a community to do other stuff, just, you know, do what you’re good at.

Sonja: That’s good advice. So you’ll both be at NCPA convention, right? Where can people find you and what should they come talk to you about?

Jeff: Sure. I mean, I think the easiest place to find us to stop by our booth is 1629. We’re going to be near the residency showcase. Parata and CPA. We’re sort of in the northeast quadrant of the of the map.

Come by, you can take a look at a demo. We actually have an offer there. We have a little discount if you buy at the booth, and you know, we’d love to see you there. We’d love to share, you know,

Xiaoyan: our story.

Jeff: Yeah, and and understand what you’re working on and see if there’s ways that this this technology might be able to help your business.

Sonja: And so – Aside from people going to NCPA convention, if someone wanted to connect with you after listening to this podcast, how can they find you and connect with you after they listen?

Jeff: I mean, you can just go to our website. It’s www.rxsimpled.com.

Sonja: Awesome, I will make sure to put that in the show notes. Thank you guys.

Xiaoyan: Or, you can Google Union Pharmacy.

Jeff: Yeah, you can Google Union Pharmacy too.

Xiaoyan: And then make sure to read our reviews haha –

Sonja: Well, thank you both so much for meeting with me today. It was so great learning more about you and what you’ve created out there in Massachusetts and what you’re sharing now with independent pharmacy across the nation, I think is excellent. I am very excited to share your story. I feel like you guys are two people who are really good at connecting. I feel like that is something I heard a lot in today’s conversation. So thank you so much.

AI Voiceover: Stick around to watch and hear a quick SimpLED overview:

Episode Summary

In this inspiring episode of Script Your Future, pharmacy owner Dr. Xiaoyan Qin and her husband Jeff Gruneich share their remarkable journey from opening their first independent pharmacy in 2019 to now operating four thriving Union Pharmacy locations in the Boston area. What started as Xiaoyan’s desire to build meaningful patient-pharmacist relationships outside the constraints of big chain pharmacy has evolved into a community-centered business model that prioritizes innovation and accessibility.

The couple’s partnership exemplifies how combining clinical expertise with technological savvy can transform pharmacy operations. When COVID-19 hit just six months after opening their first location, Xiaoyan and Jeff pivoted quickly—leveraging connections to secure masks, compounding hand sanitizer, and partnering with Cambridge-based companies to provide early diagnostic testing. These efforts not only served their community during crisis but established Union Pharmacy as a trusted healthcare partner.

Their most significant innovation came from a frustration familiar to any pharmacy owner: the chaotic will-call system. Unable to find an affordable solution to consolidate patient prescriptions and locate bags quickly, Xiaoyan challenged Jeff with a $10,000 budget and three specific requirements. The result was SimpLED, an automated will-call system that has transformed their front-end operations, doubling productivity and turning pickup duties from the most stressful task into one technicians actually enjoy.

Throughout the conversation, Xiaoyan and Jeff emphasize the importance of listening to customers, staying connected to the community, and not being afraid to build solutions when existing options fall short. Their advice to aspiring pharmacy owners is refreshingly practical: don’t just follow your heart—focus on what you’re genuinely good at, whether that’s building relationships, solving operational problems, or serving your community in unique ways.

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