Walgreens is the latest pharmacy chain attempting to acquire its way into the healthcare industry.
Key Details
- Walgreens announced Monday that it plans to purchase New Jersey-based Summit Health-CityMD for $8.9 billion.
- The deal gives Walgreens and its primary-care arm Village Medical access to 2,800 medical providers in 370 locations across the Northeastern United States.
- The merger of Village Medical and Summit Health will create one of the largest independent medical providers in the U.S., Yahoo Finance reports.
- Walgreens CEO Rosalind Brewer says 2022 is only the beginning of her company’s “transformation to a consumer-centric healthcare company.”
Why it’s News
The move is yet another major acquisition from retail and pharmaceutical companies to expand into healthcare. As we previously reported, CVS, Walmart, and Amazon have attempted to purchase a path into the highly lucrative healthcare industry.
“Walgreens and rival CVS, two retail chains with thousands of locations, have evolved in recent years with a greater focus on overall care for customers, trying to help them avoid chronic health conditions and expensive hospital stays. That goes far beyond its historic focus on store sales and filling prescriptions,” says AP.
“As retail incumbents race to participate in the evolution of care delivery, VillageMD is taking a big leap forward as the deal supports the notion that after primary care, specialty care is the next frontier of value-based care,” says Axios.
Notable Quote
“VillageMD and Summit Health-CityMD will create a multi-payer platform to deliver quality, affordable care for all patients. The combined company leverages VillageMD’s deep expertise in value-based care to support and accelerate the transition to more risk-based care and Summit Health-CityMD’s long-standing and deep expertise in delivering multispecialty, connected care. It also enhances [Walgreens Boot Alliance]’s robust portfolio of leading, integrated healthcare offerings across the care continuum,” says AP.
