Walgreens Boots Alliance and its major care accomplice VillageMD have already opened greater than 100 … [+]
Walgreens and VillageMD
Walgreens Boots Alliance is opening a brand new VillageMD clinic connected to a drugstore on common “each three days” this yr, the pharmacy chain’s chief govt says.
The most recent replace from Walgreens CEO Roz Brewer on the corporate’s $6 billion funding into VillageMD revealed the opening of doctor-staffed clinics connected to drugstores is shifting swiftly and forward of Wall Avenue’s expectations.
Since Brewer grew to become chief govt officer of Walgreens Boots Alliance a yr in the past, the enduring drugstore chain invested one other $5.2 billion in VillageMD to escalate the enlargement of doctor-staffed clinics throughout the U.S. underneath a brand new “Walgreens Well being” enterprise.
The bigger funding Walgreens made final yr was designed to speed up the opening of no less than 600 Village Medical at Walgreens major care practices in additional than 30 U.S. markets by 2025 and 1,000 by 2027, with greater than half of these practices in medically underserved communities, the corporate has mentioned.
“VillageMD has now opened 102 co-located clinics, and the rollout has accelerated to a mean tempo of 1 opening each three days for calendar yr 2022,” Brewer informed analysts Thursday on the corporate’s fiscal second quarter earnings name.
The $5.2 billion funding gave Walgreens a 63% stake in VillageMD forward of an preliminary public inventory providing the Chicago-based major care firm plans this yr. Walgreens beforehand had a 30% stake in VillageMD, a standalone firm that landed a $1 billion funding from the pharmacy big in 2020.
On Thursday, Walgreens mentioned the corporate is on observe to have greater than 200 clinics, which embody eight examination rooms with two physicians and different healthcare workers, open by the tip of this calendar yr. The enlargement will transfer past the 22 markets VillageMD clinics are in now to new areas that embody “Boston, Massachusetts; Jacksonville, Florida; and Tucson, Arizona in February; Denver, Colorado in January; and San Antonio, Texas in December,” the corporate mentioned.
“What we’re actually constructing are key relationships, the connection with the patron between the first care doctor and the pharmacist,” Brewer informed analysts.
“And that is the place we’re seeing the best uptick proper now could be in affected person satisfaction and entry to well being care and neighborhood markets,” she added. “So we’ll proceed to have a look at this and take a look at script uplift. However proper now, the main target is basically on gaining the boldness and creating new relationships within the market.”
