Nov 18, 2020,07:00am EST Bruce Japsen Senior Contributor
CVS Health, Walgreens and other
neighborhood pharmacies are touting their ability to administer Covid-19
vaccines once available as online retail giant Amazon pushes deeper into the
prescription business.
The stocks of major brick-and-mortar
drugstore chains were hit hard with Tuesday’s
announcement that Amazon is launching a new online store called
“Amazon Pharmacy” that allows its U.S. customers to order prescription drugs to
their homes with its Prime customers receiving free delivery of their
medications.
But drugstore chains including CVS,
Rite Aid, Walgreens and Walmart are ramping up marketing of their in-person
healthcare services, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic opening hundreds
of diagnostic testing facilities and making plans to administer vaccines
against the virus once they become available. And that could mean tens of
millions of customers in the coming months inside the brick-and-mortar of
drugstore chains, grocers and retailers with pharmacies given recent news that
Covid-19 vaccines made by Moderna and Pfizer are nearing U.S. approval.
“The United States government will
make a supply of the COVID-19 vaccine available to CVS Health when authorized
and available to administer in pharmacies nationwide,” CVS said in an e-mail to
customers last week. “We will offer it to the public through our 10,000 locations,
following established vaccine prioritization guidelines.”
Last week, the Trump
administration unveiled a list of drugstore chains, independent
pharmacies, grocers and retailers that have signed on to administer Covid-19
vaccines. Neither Amazon nor its Whole Foods grocery unit were on the
list.
The distribution of Covid-19
vaccinations will be complicated but these drugstores say they will be
prepared.
CVS chief executive Larry Merlo said in an
interview this month that CVS drugstores with a pharmacy will
have expanded cold storage and related facilities for vaccines.
Some vaccines in late-stage U.S.
testing need to be stored at minus 80 degrees Celsius, which is minus 112
degrees Fahrenheit. Such storage and distribution of Covid-19 vaccines is key
to the massive logistics effort that will be needed to reach hundreds of
millions of Americans.
“When that vaccine is available and
we get the call (asking), ‘are you ready’ we are going to be in a position to
say, ‘where do you want us to go,’” Merlo said in the interview. “There are
going to be different storage and handling requirements. We are ensuring that
we have those capabilities in our stores.”
Drugstores with pharmacies are
expected to play a key role along with hospitals, mobile vaccination vehicles
as well as state, local and federal health agencies to make sure Americans are
vaccinated via an effective implementation plan, the Centers for Disease
Control & Prevention told a panel of experts advising the Food and Drug
Administration last month.
More broadly, the ability to
administer vaccines during the pandemic is part of a broader strategy of
brick-and-mortar retail pharmacy chains to fill their stores with healthcare
services, making drugstores and convenient location for everything from a
physical and urgent care to a diagnostic test.
CVS, for example, is in the second year of
its three-year plan to have 1,500 HealthHubs by the end of next
year that include hundreds of new healthcare items and services. And
Walgreens earlier this
year said it will invest $1 billion in its primary care partner
VillageMD to open 500 to 700 physician-staffed clinics inside its drugstores in
more than 30 U.S. markets within the next five years.
“With more than 9,000 stores in local
communities across the country, Walgreens offers unparalleled access to a
trusted and personal relationship and expertise with our network of more than
25,000 pharmacists nationwide, providing specialized support for chronic,
complex conditions, medication therapy management and vaccinations,” Walgreens
spokeswoman Kelli Teno said.
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