Pharmacy Business

Supervalu’s new CEO -- and soon-to-be president -- is shaking things up, as evidenced by the pending departures of two longtime executives and a realigned customer-focused leadership and operating structure alongside the creation of a new health-and-wellness division to facilitate stronger alignment between the Minneapolis-based company’s pharmacy and health and beauty operations.

All Glen’s Markets pharmacies serving communities throughout northern Michigan are now offering a generic drug program of 30-day prescriptions for $4 and 90-day prescriptions for $10. The program offers lower prices on over 300 generic drugs.

The Kroger Co.’s Los Angeles-based Ralphs Grocery Co. subsidiary is teaming up with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and L.A. Care Health Plan to spearhead the largest in-person giveaway of nicotine patches and gum ever in California. The 30,000 quit-smoking aids are currently being given away to L.A. county residents at 47 participating Ralphs Pharmacies while supplies last.

Brookshire Grocery Co. has placed the pharmacy department front and center in a remodeled Super 1 Foods store set to have a grand reopening June 24 in Lafayette, La.

The state of Maryland yesterday launched a new statewide discount drug card program called the Maryland Rx Card to help residents pay for prescription drugs, and named Safeway and Giant Food, LLC the preferred pharmacies for the program.

In a major new study exploring consumer behavior toward self-medication and non-prescription medicines, The Nielsen Company highlights the polarizing impact that the global economic slowdown is having. While 46 percent of consumers around the world indicated that the global economic slowdown would affect the amount or type of non-prescription medicine they will use, the level of agreement ranged from 79 percent of Chinese to only 5 percent of Danes.

The National Association of Chain Drug Stores (NACDS) and the Food Marketing Institute (FMI) this week filed their principal legal brief with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, challenging the First DataBank and Medi-Span settlements that lower average wholesale prices (AWPs). Joining the organizations in the brief were pharmacies that stand to be harmed by the AWP reductions.

Albertson’s, LLC plans to upgrade its pharmacy technology with a turnkey enterprise solution that automates various aspects of the grocer’s pharmacy operations.