The change in name of CVS Caremark to CVS Health marks the culmination of a transition almost a quarter century in the making. Just 25 years ago CVS was one of several regional drug chains with a strong presence in a relatively limited geographic area.
It’s not that Mark Cosby, the departing president of the CVS drug chain, was not respected. After all, here was an executive with an extensive retailing background, most notably at Sears and Macy’s. The drawback was that Cosby was not a chain drug retailer.
While the new regulations governing pharmacy compounding contained in the Drug Quality and Security Act, which received final congressional approval and was signed into law by President Obama last month, garnered most of the media attention, the bigger story is the provisions of the legislation givi
he began working for the Deerfield, Ill.-based, 8,100-store drug chain in 1970, when Walgreens, then located on Peterson Avenue in northern Chicago, operated some 550 drug stores — Steve Lubin has accepted a retirement package, leaving the company he has been so large a part of for so
Much has been written in this space about the lift the Affordable Care Act will provide for the retail pharmacy business.
Should companies consider data an asset? Recognizing the value of translating big data into something meaningful that informs product, marketing, customer service, distribution, sales, and operations decisions has been a hot topic this year.
The disappearance of Kerr Drug, one of America’s elite regional drug chains, has yet to be felt. But with Walgreens closing its acquisition of the 76-store, Raleigh, N.C.
The halting performance of the federal health insurance exchange during its first weeks of operation dealt a harsh blow to everyone with a stake in the success of the Affordable Care Act.
Not often does change disrupt the orderly nature of things in chain drug retailing to the degree that the recent personnel shifts at Walgreens have altered both the personnel roster at that drug chain and the priorities of the many constituencies with which the retailer interacts.
Recent events illustrate the high stakes involved in getting health care right.
Many retailers today are immersed in building multichannel capabilities. The multichannel wave has led to many good initiatives, making it easier for customers to interact with retailers across distinct channels, including fast-growing mobile channels. For example, A.T.
The announcement last month that Walgreens had agreed to acquire Kerr Drug, the 76-store, Raleigh, N.C.-based drug chain, disrupted chain drug retailing as few previous acquisitions had done. It wasn’t the size of the deal that caused such a stir.
New research that examines customer satisfaction with pharmacy operators contains some revealing insights. The studies, conducted separately by J.D. Power and Market Force Information, identify favorites among consumers and point to broader industrywide trends.
It is becoming increasingly difficult not to think of Rite Aid as one of the chain drug industry’s trendsetters.
Kerr Drug’s decision to sell its retail and specialty pharmacy businesses is another milestone on the road to consolidation that community pharmacy has been on for more than two decades.
The retail consumer shift toward wellness is well under way. Hamacher Resource Group and several leading trade associations spotted this emerging trend years ago and changed the term “health and beauty care” (HBC) to “health, beauty, and wellness” (HBW) in everything they produced.
