Mr Edward Crook was admitted to the degree of Doctor of Pharmacy (honoris causa) during a ceremony held on Friday 5 May, by Professor Annamarie Jagose, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor.
“Mr Crook’s innovative mind has led to the development and implementation of computer systems that have shaped the way pharmacy is practised. It’s an honour to celebrate his foundational contributions and longstanding relationship with our Sydney Pharmacy School,” said Professor Jagose.
Professor Andrew McLachlan AM (left), Edward Crook (centre) and Professor Annamarie Jagose, Provost and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (right) at the University of Sydney
Mr Crook graduated in pharmacy at the University of Sydney in 1959. He started his career at Hallam Pharmacies in Sydney before he moved to Canberra, where he owned and operated community pharmacies. He was a founding member and then chairman of an ACT pharmacy marketing group, which brought pharmacies and community pharmacies together to ensure competitive medicines prices and share resources to promote their services.
As an eager leader, Mr Crook served as ACT President of the Pharmaceutical Society of Australia and Pharmacy Guild of Australia in the late 1970s. Within these roles, he was celebrated for changing community pharmacy and reshaping the nature of healthcare and funding for the sector.
In 1977, Mr Crook and pharmacist Colin Trevena led the development and implementation of computer systems in pharmacy, including the dispensing process alongside medication information and drug interaction checking. They formed the company Chemdata, which entered a relationship with Amfac and established the national Amfac-Chemdata company in 1984. Over 20 years, they built a team of more than 300 workers and gained a market share of 80 percent within community pharmacies until IMS bought them in 1993.
Mr Crook has a Master of Management Economics degree from the University of New South Wales and holds qualifications as a Certified Practising Accountant.
During the 1970s, Mr Crook led a Citizen Science project to explore test sunglasses widely sold through the pharmacy community. He provided and instructed school children to use testing sunglass lenses while testing equipment across the community. The experiment saw the identification of significant deficiencies in sunglasses. It led to the Australian Standard on Sunglasses amendment and Mr Crook appointed to the Consumer Council of the ACT.
Mr Crook is a strong supporter of the University of Sydney, especially the Sydney Pharmacy School. He had a key role as a founding supporter and member of the Advisory Board of the Herbal Medicines Research and Education Centre (in the then Faculty of Pharmacy). He also helped secure support for developing a herb-drug interaction database for computer-based checking of potential interactions, which is still used today and implemented in the widely used eMIMs software.
