INSTITUTIONAL PHARMACIES: CAPSTONE TO BUY SYMPHONY

      Capstone Pharmacy Services, a Baltimore, MD-based provider
 of pharmacy services for nursing homes and prisons, announced
 yesterday that it has agreed buy Symphony Pharmacy Services, the
 pharmacy division of Integrated Health Services, for $150 million
 in cash and stock.  Baltimore SUN reports that the deal will
 double Capstone's annual revenues from $105 million to more than
 $210 million and will make it the second largest company in its
 field nationally.
      EXPONENTIAL BOOM:  Under the deal, Capstone will increase
 the number of pharmacy facilities it operates from nine to 35
 (Salganik, 6/25).  Symphony currently provides institutional
 pharmacy and consulting services to 40,000 residents in more than
 380 facilities in eight states (NEW YORK TIMES, 6/25).  Capstone
 will add those facilities and patients to its current network,
 which provides services to more than 160,000 patients.  
      SIZE COUNTS:  Capstone CEO Dirk Allison said that the deal
 will allow the company to "go back and work on purchasing" in an
 effort to negotiate better volume discounts from suppliers. Ray
 Wood, an analyst with Richmond, VA-based Anderson & Strudwick,
 said the deal takes Capstone "from a regional player to a
 national player" and that the company's "expanded size and
 national reach" will provide it with better leverage when
 negotiating with managed care companies.  Allison noted that
 Capstone, which already has a strong foothold in "the New York
 and Chicago areas," will be "strengthened" in California,
 Florida, Pennsylvania and the Midwest with the addition of
 Symphony.
      TWO SIDES TO EVERY...:  Integrated, which operates more than
 600 nursing homes and other "post-acute" care facilities and had
 $1.2 billion in revenues last year, will use money from the sale
 to "reduce debt and make acquisitions" in areas such as home
 health care.  Integrated CEO and Chairman Robert Elkins said his
 company views "pharmacy as a service that can be outsourced to a
 provider such as Capstone, whose critical mass will allow for
 economies of scale."  Twenty percent of Symphony's current
 clients are facilities operated by Integrated, according to
 Elkins (SUN, 6/25).