Pharmacy.

In California’s 2025–2026 session, Assembly Members Berman and Bonta advance a measure that consolidates authority over pharmacy practice with the State Board of Pharmacy, while broadening what pharmacists may do in patient care and tightening oversight of out-of-state operations. The authors frame the proposal as a shift to exclusive board administration and enforcement of the Pharmacy Law, paired with a longer-term renewal of the board’s regulatory role through 2030 and the creation of an advisory body on pharmacy technicians.

The bill would confer on the board exclusive authority to interpret and enforce the Pharmacy Law as it governs the practice of pharmacy and the licensing of pharmacists and pharmacies, while allowing the board to consider unlicensed activity. It would also establish a Pharmacy Technician Advisory Committee to advise the board on technician matters, comprising licensed technicians, practicing pharmacists (including a board member), and a public member. The governor’s original board framework would be extended through a new advisory mechanism intended to guide technician-related policy and oversight.

Among substantive changes to practice, the measure would expand pharmacist authority to furnish a broader set of medications and devices, including certain preventive health items that do not require a formal diagnosis, and allow completion of missing information on a prescription when there is supporting evidence. It would define an “accepted standard of care” for these activities and authorize advisory communications to health care professionals or patients’ agents. The bill would remove certain time limits and procedural constraints, such as extending the authorization to furnish COVID-19 oral therapeutics indefinitely, removing the requirement to contact a prescriber for refills under some circumstances, and removing a prohibition on longer initial-to-refill supplies for dangerous drugs. It would also eliminate the authorization to distribute epinephrine auto-injectors through certain channels. In addition, the terminology for higher-level pharmacists would shift from “advanced practice pharmacist” to “advanced pharmacist practitioner,” with related adjustments to qualifications and ongoing education, and new definitions for office-based or collaborative services.

On regulatory and enforcement matters, the measure would expand oversight of nonresident or mail-order pharmacies—requiring nonresident pharmacies to designate a California-licensed pharmacist as pharmacist-in-charge, to notify the board about designated personnel, and to permit board inspections with a board-funded cost-recovery mechanism. It would require pharmacies to set pharmacist-to-technician staffing ratios within specified bounds and to notify management of dangerous conditions that threaten patient safety. Self-assessment requirements would be added for licensed facilities, with signatures under penalty of perjury and biennial or periodic updates tied to license changes, creating a state-mandated local program in that context. The bill also broadens enforcement options, including new fines for internet-based dispensing without appropriate prior examination, expanded authorities to sanction mail-order and chain pharmacies, and enhanced provisions for medication-error reporting and chain ownership defenses. It introduces new and renumbered provisions related to pharmacy records, labeling, and the oversight of nonresident and in-state operations, along with updated rules for pharmacist-in-charge designation and replacement processes.

Taken together, the proposal situates a more centralized regulatory framework around the board while expanding pharmacists’ clinical functions, updating standards for practice and recordkeeping, and tightening accountability for out-of-state and mail-order pharmacy activity. The authors place these changes within a broader policy context that includes new advisory structures, heightened data and reporting requirements, and a recalibrated framework for interdisciplinary communication and patient care. The measure also interacts with other legislative efforts, with several provisions crafted to become operative only if related bills are enacted, and it specifies a no-reimbursement requirement for local entities associated with the act.