FlavoRx to Relocate to Howard County

By Susan Kim, STAFF WRITER

A spoonful of sugar is coming to Howard County, as FlavoRx, a company known for adding palatable flavoring to bitter medicines, will move from Bethesda into a Columbia office in April.
For more than a decade, FlavoRx has been distributing flavors that pharmacists can safely add to liquid medicines to make them more tolerable to patients. The company provides pharmacies with FDA-approved flavorings that can be added to more than 300 medications.
The FlavoRx system is used in more than 35,000 pharmacies across the U.S., as well as internationally in Canada, Australia, New Zealand and Puerto Rico. The company also has flavorings for pet medicines, including chicken pot pie, sizzling bacon and Atlantic salmon and the veterinary system is currently available in more than 2,000 animal hospitals in the United States and Canada.
FlavoRx will move its headquarters, as well as its packaging and distribution operations, to 26,000 square feet of existing space on Gerwig Lane and bring 50 employees. The company is moving from Montgomery County because "our offices in Bethesda are unsuited for operational efficiencies," said board chairman Chuck Nabit.

A 'Feel-Good' Company
During the past few years, FlavoRx has been growing its business by partnering with large pharmaceutical chains, such as Walgreens, Wal-Mart, CVS, Albertsons, Target, Kroger, Giant, Kmart, Winn Dixie, Safeway and others.
"We've been around for about 10 years or so, but it's really only in the past few years that we've added many of the larger chains," said FlavoRx spokesperson Teresa Chen. "We're trying to do our part to get the word out there."
For Chen and other employees, part of the attraction of working for FlavoRx is the knowledge that the product helps people feel better faster. "We try to go out of our way to have a do-good, feel-good company here," said Chen. "Especially when it comes to children, FlavoRx can really affect their recovery rates and quality of life."
The service is aimed primarily at children, who are the main consumers of liquid medication - and often the least willing to take it. But FlavoRx is available for adults as well, as liquid medications are sometimes best for adults who might have problems like limited motion of their tongues due to stroke.
FlavoRx is also well known for its community service activities. The company has sponsored a Bowl-a-Thon that raised $7,000 for The Children's Inn at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is a residential "place like home" for sick children and their families.
Chen said FlavoRx, which has also been involved with the National Walk for Epilepsy and the March of Dimes WalkAmerica, will be on the lookout for local charitable causes in Howard County as well.

No More Making Faces
Consumers and pharmacists who want to figure out which flavoring agents work best with medicines from Augmentin to Zithromax can check out the company's online "Wheel of Yuck" at www.flavorx.com. It matches medicines with all 42 of the company's flavors.
As the company readies for its relocation, it also continues to roll out its latest product, an at-home flavoring system called FlavorIt. The at-home kit can be used with common over-the-counter liquids, such as cough syrups, vitamins, analgesics, antacids and infant formulas. FlavorIt, which made its debut in March, is available in Wal-Mart stores nationwide.
Those big chain partnerships are a departure from the company's initial philosophy, which focused on marketing independent pharmacies. But it was during those early times that word-of-mouth advertising about the product won FlavoRx its first 20 contracts with its small clients.