Walgreens is seeing “an enormous amount of demand” for injectable weight loss drugs, its president of U.S. healthcare said during the Reuters Total Health conference in Chicago. He declared that the healthcare industry needs to come up with a reimbursement model “that correctly compensates pharmacists and others” to administer these drugs. In his view, reimbursement hasn't caught up with the demand.
Whether it was Amazon's buy of One Medical or CVS Health's acquisition of Signify Health, retailers made waves in healthcare this year. Across all of the deals, it's clear that expanding access to medical services is the key goal, experts said. And this is only the beginning.
The combined organization will have more than 680 provider locations in 26 markets. With CVS Health and Amazon both making major acquisitions, the Summit Health deal was both offensive and defensive for Walgreens, one expert said.
Walgreens Boots Alliance recently announced it will acquire its remaining 45% stake in home care company CareCentrix for $392 million. The news follows CVS Health's plans to acquire Signify Health. While retailers could prove beneficial to home health, it's too early to tell, experts said.
Walgreens bought a 71% stake in Shields Health Solutions, which strikes partnerships with hospitals to run specialty pharmacy programs. Walgreens has the option to buy the remaining equity interests in the future.
Facing declining retail traffic, particularly overseas, Walgreens posted a net loss of $1.7 billion for the quarter ending on May 31. The company still has a long road ahead, but analysts said they liked its long-term strategy with VillageMD.
A specialty drug is a class of prescription medications used to treat complex, chronic or rare medical conditions. Although this classification was originally intended to define the treatment of rare, also termed “orphan” diseases, affecting fewer than 200,000 people in the US, more recently, specialty drugs have emerged as the cornerstone of treatment for chronic and complex diseases such as cancer, autoimmune conditions, diabetes, hepatitis C, and HIV/AIDS.
The 7-year strategic partnership is meant to combine Microsoft's AI and cloud infrastructure with Walgreens' retail footprint and outpatient services to create new tech-enabled ways of accessing and receiving care.
The initial major focus of the partnership will be medication adherence, which costs the U.S. healthcare system nearly $300 billion annually
Patients who are signed up for alerts that notify them when their prescription is ready can now choose to have their medication delivered to their doorstep for a $4.99 fee.
The two companies are already working together on a pilot program putting senior-focused primary care centers in Walgreens stores located in Kansas City.
Munck Wilson Mandala Partner Greg Howison shared his perspective on some of the legal ramifications around AI, IP, connected devices and the data they generate, in response to emailed questions.
The original agreement between Walgreens and Rite Aid is no more. Rather, Walgreens will pay $5.175 billion to purchase 2,186 Rite Aid stores.
Walgreens has shut down a Theranos Wellness Center in Palo Alto, California, and told the testing company not to send samples to its lab in Newark, California. Arizona operations are mostly unaffected.
Also, Novartis has agreed to settle U.S. kickback allegations for $390 million and nearly 200 groups rally to save AHRQ.
