Our History

The story behind the nation’s largest correctional pharmacy provider begins in 1970 when pharmacists Gilbert and Joan Zilner purchase Diamond Drugs, a corner drug store located in the quaint community of Indiana, Pennsylvania.

The Zilner’s little drug store at 639 Philadelphia Street filled prescriptions for local residents and even a few nearby long-term care communities. They also sold an assortment of medical supplies. Not much would change in the ensuing decade.

Nineteen eighty-three, however, was a pivotal year. The Zilners moved the flagship drug store across Philadelphia Street to a roomier, more visible storefront. And that year also saw Diamond submit it’s first-ever bid to provide pharmacy services to a correctional facility.

In 1991, Gilbert and Joan’s son Mark Zilner joined Diamond after graduating pharmacy school. As director of operations, Mark had new ideas for transforming the company, especially regarding workflow and for serving the growing base of correctional pharmacy customers. In 1995, Diamond broke ground on a 33,000 square foot production facility outside of Indiana. By the late 1990s, Diamond was operating this new closed-door
facility, along with a retail medical supply store and two retail drug store locations locally.

Six years and thousands of new customers later, Diamond Pharmacy officially surpassed the competition to become the nation’s largest correctional pharmacy provider. In that same time frame, Diamond had also grown into Pennsylvania’s largest independently-owned long-term care pharmacy provider. In 2003, the company underwent another facelift, this time to add 100,000 square feet of new pharmacy space.

The expansion didn’t end here, however. Subsidiary companies including RemedyRepack, Sapphire Health, and InnovaScript would spring up in the early 2000s. These companies would provide standalone and supplementary services to Diamond in the form of FDA-certified drug repackaging, electronic medical and health records, and mail-order pharmacy, respectively. Diamond’s Medical Supply division would also broaden services to include institutional customers.

Today, Diamond still calls Indiana home and proudly employs over 1,000 people. The Zilner family continues to own and operate Diamond with the same ethos you would expect of a hometown pharmacy: Friendly. Personal.
Passionate. Community-Oriented.