CONSHOHOCKEN, Pa. — Last year Good Neighbor Pharmacy continued to position itself as a “pharmacy enablement” partner for independents through a host of support services including operational support, business services, front-end product sourcing, in-store merchandising and business coaching. According to Tim Weber, national vice president of community pharmacy solutions for strategy, innovation and data at Good Neighbor Pharmacy, the franchise chain and its parent company, Cencora, spent 2025 reviewing and refining their offerings to ensure that they align with member pharmacies’ current needs, address their evolving challenges and capitalize on new opportunities.
Tim Cernohous, senior vice president and president of community retail and long-term care pharmacy at Cencora, noted that the Good Neighbor Pharmacy approach is strongly data driven, utilizing the collection and analysis of data from member pharmacies and their patients to pinpoint current needs and shape tools, resources and solutions to boost members’ business performance and optimize their marketing and retail strategies. For example, the franchise chain uses a data analytics tool piloted in 2024 and performed by Cencora’s Enterprise Data & Analytics team to provide detailed snapshots of pharmacies’ communities. The program generates insights that enable members to identify gaps in care that offer opportunities for new service offerings.
According to Weber, the United States faces a shortage of physicians that could range between 87,000 and 124,000 by 2034 to 2037. This shortfall could present a significant opportunity for retail pharmacies, particularly independent community pharmacies, to fill the looming care gaps, because of their geographic proximity and their proven role as an accessible, trusted health care resource, especially in underserved areas.
“As pharmacies expand their community-centric offerings for revenue diversification, they can simultaneously meet community needs by providing clinical services such as Test & Treat, immunizations and HIV PEP/PrEp,” he pointed out. “Cencora and Good Neighbor Pharmacy have the data to help their customer pharmacies understand what opportunities are most relevant in their communities, and we have the tools to help them understand the clinical services that are permitted by the different states.”
Another opportunity for community pharmacy, Cernohous added, is the increasing shift in patient and pharmacist preference toward an omnichannel model in which patients engage with their pharmacy through both digital and in-person touchpoints.
“Brick-and-mortar pharmacies have a key advantage with patients overwhelmingly preferring in-person pharmacist interactions, placing high trust in those relationships,” Cernohous said. “Cencora and Good Neighbor Pharmacy are committed to helping retail pharmacies integrate digital enhancements into their traditional care models and keep them relevant in delivering care in their communities.”
With community pharmacies facing unrelenting pressure due to declining reimbursements, Good Neighbor Pharmacies and Cencora have explored opportunities to diversify the pharmacy’s revenue streams, not only with added clinical services, vaccination programs and other clinical initiatives, but also by creating and supporting front-end businesses that offer such categories as over-the-counter medications, health and beauty aids, consumables, and general merchandise.
According to Cernohous, consumer/patient research conducted by Good Neighbor Pharmacy and Cencora underlined the enduring relevance of the brick-and-mortar drug store and the value of the relationship between patients and their pharmacists. The results suggested an opportunity existed to expand pharmacy offerings to include select front-end categories.
As a result, the company launched Cencora Marketplace in 2023 as a platform for sourcing front-end products. The program is available to all independent pharmacies, not only Good Neighbor member pharmacies.
Currently the Marketplace has more than 250 sellers and over 50,000 individual product SKUs, ranging from cosmetics or surgical supplies to candy and toys. Because orders are aggregated at Cencora, the customer pharmacies can obtain highly competitive pricing.
The company is particularly excited about the fact that the program is not just an ordering platform, said Cernohous, who added that Cencora and Good Neighbor Pharmacy can provide the support to help customer pharmacies expand their offerings beyond clinical items. For example, the merchandisers ensure that products are placed appropriately, based on patient traffic, and they make sure that the products are planogrammed correctly.
Cencora Marketplace has evolved since its launch in 2023, Cernohous said, and presently some customer pharmacies are selling innovative products they have created on the Marketplace.
KEY EXECUTIVES
Tim Cernohous, Senior Vice President and President of Community
Retail and Long-Term Care Pharmacy, Cencora
Tim Weber, National Vice President of Community Pharmacy Solutions, Strategy, Innovation and Data, Cencora
HEADQUARTERS
1 West First Ave., Conshohocken, Pa. 19428
Phone: (610) 727-7000
Websites: mygnp.com, cencora.com
TRADE CLASS — Drug Chain
Full-year results (12/31/25)
Pharmacy sales — $19.6 billion*
Overall sales — $20.59 billion* (+1.3%)
Number of pharmacies — 5,293 (unique NCPDPs with active
GNP and/or Elevate subscriptions on 12/31/25)
Number of states operating — 50, plus D.C., Puerto Rico, Guam,
Northern Mariana Islands, U.S. Virgin Islands
*CDR estimate. Franchisor Good Neighbor, a unit of Cencora,
does not report earnings.
