CHPA ramps up to represent whole consumer health value chain, exec says

Judging by past statements, CHPA has had an intention for several years to become more active within the industry. These aspirational pronouncements were not accompanied by substantive steps forward, though.  The organization would chip in with comments on the federal register where appropriate, but otherwise seemed content to operate in the background.

More horsepower for organization

But the recent hires of Duffy MacKay, ND, as the organization’s senior vice president of dietary supplements and Larisa Pavlick as the senior director of quality assurance put the category on notice that the venerable trade organization finally has some horses to pull that plow.

CHPA has a longer history than about all of the other trade organization active within the sector put together.  In an interview recorded at the show in Las Vegas, MacKay laid out a bit of the organization’s history and where it plans to go from here.

“If you look back, CHPA has represented OTC medicines for more than 140 years,” ​MacKay said.

MacKay said the organization has had a core group of members who have manufactured dietary supplements for years, some of which, like Metamucil, predated the formal founding of the category.

“Over the years those footprints have grown via acquisitions,” ​MacKay said.  “In the last five years it has all exploded.  They wanted more horsepower to be more active in supplements.”​

The new normal

MacKay said he’s come on at an interesting time in the organization’s history.  Just as the post pandemic landscape was starting to take shape, the war in Ukraine and rampant inflation has turned the world on its head.  MacKay has been front and center in the strategic conversations CEOs are having in trying to negotiate this new normal.

"What I’ve heard is everyone has had to throw away their business plan like three times,” ​MacKay said.