America is a nation in pain. Over 100 million Americans suffer from chronic pain, and the annual cost of health care for pain (including disability days and lost wages and productivity) is estimated at between $560 billion and $635 billion.
Loblaw Cos.’ pending acquisition of Canada’s Shoppers Drug Mart drug chain is but the latest example of a global chain drug store business that continues to pursue realignment, if not consolidation. At first glance, the Loblaws-Shoppers tie-up makes little sense.
The run-up to the launch of the centerpiece of the nation’s health care reform plan isn’t going smoothly.
Offering fast-moving consumer goods such as cold beverages, magazines, candy, gum and mints at checkout is the tried-and-true formula for ensuring quick turns on low-margin items with high consumer demand.
Unlike traditional skin care products, which are typically used for moisturizing, medicated skin care products provide relief from such conditions as acne, eczema, rashes and itching, rosacea, warts, and psoriasis.
or, for that matter, any other retail trade organization — is finally upon us. The result is that some 5,200 people — a group that includes the NACDS board — are descending on Las Vegas to meet, talk,
With less than two months to go before open enrollment in the new state health insurance exchanges begins, one of the great dramas in the history of retail pharmacy is about to unfold.
or those premises — here’s a look at the most significant events thus far in
Retail pharmacy has emerged as a catalyst for change. National chains, including CVS Caremark and Rite Aid, as well as such regional players as Kerr Drug, are rethinking their practice and business models in a bid to make health care more accessible, efficient and affordable.
or reemerged — on the chain drug scene this spring, each bringing a sense of excitement and innovation to an industry suddenly in need of both. Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of their emergence is that each is a throwback to an earlier time, a period when innovation and
a key provision of the legislation, but one the Supreme Court,
The first NACDS Marketplace Conference, held so many years ago in Minneapolis, attracted a handful of the curious and the committed, the workers and the wonderers, the doubters and the dutiful, all of whom traipsed to the northern tier of the United States to discern whether anything new was about t
Chain drug store operators and other mass market retailers have much to contemplate as they look to the future.
One of the overlooked events at the recently concluded Annual Meeting of the National Association of Chain Drug Stores was the departure, after a year of service, of Walgreens chief executive Greg Wasson as NACDS chairman.
A recent spate of studies about different aspects of health care, while embodying many contradictions, points to a period of ferment, the likes of which has not been seen since Medicare and Medicaid were put in place during the Johnson administration in the mid-1960s.
What should retailers do when the best-prepared plans still lead to the question, “Where are all the customers?” Here’s what to do: Prepare some new plans.
