What do foreign exchange executives do when they hang up their trading skills?

If you are David Gibbins, the managing director and global head of foreign exchange and commodity derivatives for RBC Capital Markets before retiring in 2003, you invest in and join the board of PCA Services Inc., an Oakville, Ont.-based company that has developed the software and the hardware to dispense and manage medicines required by patients.

"I have always been interested in technology," said Gibbins, adding a decade back he helped develop the software for the country's first Internet trading platform. "With our product we have the fulfillment of the script being brought much closer to where the script is issued, which brings time and cost savings to all the parties. This is disruptive technology for the pharmacies, but it is great for the consumer. It is a convenience play," he said, noting the system is safer than the normal way in which prescriptions are filled.

PCA, which also developed the technology-intensive Direct Care Pharmacy, will celebrate a major milestone today with the official launch of its first facility at Toronto's Sunnybrook Health Sciences Centre. Indeed, two machines will be unveiled. The machines, about twice as large as an average bank ATM, come with one major difference: the same box that dispenses the medicines allows patients to communicate directly with a pharmacist, one of seven employed by the company.

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