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☆ Walgreens Abortion Pill Furor Highlights Complexity of Access in Post-Roe World
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-08 | by ( Jennifer Calfas | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Pharmacies and medication abortion are emerging as contentious political battlegrounds in the increasingly complex issue of abortion access in the U.S.Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. has found itself at the center of the fray after the pharmacy chain said it wouldn’t dispense the abortion pill in states where abortion is illegal and in several states where it is currently legal, including Alaska, Iowa, Kansas and Montana, given the “complexity and flux” of the laws. The move sparked backlash from several Democratic leaders and praise from some Republican politicians.

☆ Walgreens to dispense abortion pills in states where legal
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-07 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

March 6 (Reuters) - Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) said on Monday that it plans to dispense abortion pill Mifepristone in any jurisdiction where it is legally permissible to do so. "Once we are certified by FDA, we will dispense this medication consistent with federal and state laws," the company said in a statement. Reporting by Akanksha Khushi in Bengaluru; Editing by Sandra MalerOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ California to not do business with Walgreens over abortion pills issue, Governor says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-06 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

March 6 (Reuters) - California would not do business with Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O), state Governor Gavin Newsom said in a tweet on Monday, days after the pharmacy chain said it will not dispense abortion pills in some Republican states. The state refuses to do business with Walgreens or "any company that cowers to the extremists and puts women's lives at risk," Democrat governor Newsom said. The company said last week it will steer clear from 20 states, including states where abortion remains legal, where the Republican attorneys general have warned it of risking breaking the law if it distributed abortion pills. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration in January allowed retail pharmacies to sell abortion pill mifepristone, including by mail, provided they were certified under special safety rules for the drug. Reporting by Raghav Mahobe in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini GanguliOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Walgreens Won’t Sell Abortion Pill in Some States
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-04 | by ( Ginger Adams Otis | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Photo: Taylor Glascock for The Wall Street JournalMedication abortions accounted for 54% of abortions in the U.S. in 2020, according to the Guttmacher Institute. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. said it won’t dispense the abortion pill in several states, including four where abortion is legal, as the company navigates the complicated landscape created after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. The pharmacy chain said it intends to move forward with a federal certification process that will allow it to dispense mifepristone to customers from its bricks-and-mortar locations with a doctor’s prescription.

☆ Walgreens won't dispense abortion pills in some Republican states
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-03 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

March 2 (Reuters) - Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) on Thursday said it will not dispense abortion pills in the states of 20 Republican attorneys general who have told the pharmacy chain it risked breaking the law should it dispense them to the states by mail. The decision comes after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration allowed retail pharmacies to dispense mifepristone pills, including by mail, provided they are certified under special safety rules for the drug. A Walgreens spokesperson said the pharmacy's decision was in response to a letter from the attorneys general. They said Walgreens intended to become a certified pharmacy and would only dispense in jurisdictions where it was legal to do so. Mifepristone, used in combination with another drug, misoprostol, is approved for abortion within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy.

☆ Walgreens CEO Bets on Doctors Over Drugstores in Search for Growth
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-19 | by ( Sharon Terlep | Photographs Taylor Glascock For The Wall Street Journal | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Deerfield, Ill.—A year into her job as Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc.’s chief executive, Rosalind Brewer realized the company’s board wasn’t entirely sold on her plan to save its ailing drugstore business. So she took directors on the road.

WASHINGTON, Feb 7 (Reuters) - Texas sued the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday to prevent it from asking pharmacies to fill reproductive health prescriptions. The Biden administration said in July 2022 that refusing to fill prescriptions for drugs that could be used to terminate a pregnancy could violate federal law, regardless of various state bans on the procedure. The lawsuit was filed on Tuesday against the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas. The Food and Drug Administration said January that abortion pills would become more widely available at pharmacies and through the mail. A legal battle is under way at a federal court in Texas, where abortion opponents have sued to undo the approval of the drugs.

Feb 1 (Reuters) - A group of 20 Republican state attorneys general on Wednesday told Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) and CVS Health Corp (CVS.N) that they risk running afoul of federal and state law if they dispense the abortion drug mifepristone by mail. Walgreens and CVS have said they intend to become certified and dispense the drug in states where abortion is legal, though neither has yet done so. Mifepristone, used in combination with another drug, misoprostol, is approved for abortion within the first 10 weeks of pregnancy. The attorneys general called this interpretation "bizarre" and warned that mailing the drug could violate some states' laws. Meanwhile, generic mifepristone manufacturer GenBioPro and a doctor have challenged restrictions on the drug in West Virginia and North Carolina, respectively.

☆ Anti-abortion protesters break into Walgreens AGM meeting room
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-26 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 26 (Reuters) - Anti-abortion protesters broke into the room where Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) held its annual shareholders meeting in Newport Coast, California on Thursday for its decision to start selling abortion pills, the pharmacy chain said. "Today, directly after the close of official business of our annual shareholders meeting, a small group of protesters entered the meeting room without authorization," Walgreens Senior Director for External Relations Fraser Engerman told Reuters. "It was a wild annual shareholders meeting," said Walgreens shareholder and AGM attendee John Chevedden. "The protesters knew what they were doing because they found a way to enter the room from behind the podium. "Upon leaving the meeting there were about 50 noisy protesters with signs just outside of the resort grounds," he said via email.

Jan 24 (Reuters) - Amazon.com Inc (AMZN.O) said on Tuesday it is offering a $5 monthly subscription plan for U.S. Prime members that will cover a range of generic drugs and their doorstep delivery, furthering the ecommerce giant's push into healthcare. The program, named RxPass, includes more than 50 medications addressing over 80 chronic conditions such as high blood pressure, anxiety, diabetes and male pattern baldness, Vin Gupta, Amazon Pharmacy's chief medical officer, told Reuters. However, customers enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid or any other government healthcare program will not be able to enroll in Amazon Pharmacy's RxPass service. The average Prime member would save about $100 per year with RxPass, John Love, vice president of Amazon Pharmacy, said in an interview. Amazon Prime members in most U.S. states can sign up for the program from Tuesday.

☆ Walgreens removes purchase limits on children's fever medicines
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-16 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: 1 min

Jan 16 (Reuters) - Pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) said on Monday it has removed online-only purchase limits for its over-the-counter pediatric fever-reducing products, as supply conditions improve. Pharmacy chains including CVS Health Corp (CVS.N) and Walgreens as well as U.S. grocer Kroger Co (KR.N) had last month limited purchases of children's pain and cold medicines at a time when the country was experiencing one of the worst flu seasons in a decade. Walgreens had put a limit of six over-the-counter pediatric fever reducer products per online transaction. Reporting by Arunima Kumar in Bengaluru; Editing by Andrea RicciOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Walgreens Revisits Shoplifting Security as Losses From Theft Drop
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-06 | by ( Sharon Terlep | Sarah Nassauer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Beauty products are locked in a case with a customer-service button at a Walgreens in New York City. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. said it might have taken anti-shoplifting efforts too far. The nation’s second-largest U.S. pharmacy chain by locations poured money last year into additional security, some of which executives said was ineffective, and it is now considering cutting back as losses from theft have dropped significantly, finance chief James Kehoe said Thursday.

Jan 6 (Reuters) - Pharmacies across the United States are weighing whether to sell mifepristone, a pill used in medication abortions, following the Food and Drug Administration's announcement earlier this week that they can now do so. The FDA rule will make medication abortion, which accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions, more accessible in states where abortion remains legal, but its impact on pharmacies in the states that have banned abortion remains to be seen. The pharmacy is located near Florida's borders with Georgia and Alabama, where abortion is severely restricted. We're not near an abortion clinic or in a larger city where that happens more," she said. Steve Moore, pharmacist and owner of Condo Pharmacy in Plattsburgh, New York, a state where abortion is legal, plans to dispense the drug.

☆ Walgreens Sales Fall as Demand for Covid Vaccines Wanes
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Will Feuer | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. said sales fell 1.5% in the recently ended quarter, as a drop-off in Covid-19 vaccinations and test kits hampered the company’s retail pharmacy business in the U.S. The Deerfield, Ill., drugstore chain cited strong sales of cough, cold and flu medicines as one bright spot that helped comparable retail sales excluding tobacco rise 2.1% in the U.S. A surge in pediatric cases of RSV, influenza and Covid-19 in the U.S. this winter has driven demand for those medicines. The beauty and personal-care categories also grew in the quarter.

☆ Walgreens Becomes First U.S. Pharmacy Chain to Say It Will Sell Abortion Pill
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( Liz Essley Whyte | ) www.wsj.com time to read: 1 min

Packages of Mifepristone, a drug that blocks a hormone needed for pregnancy and is FDA-approved for use up to 10 weeks in pregnancy. Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. is the first major national pharmacy chain to say it plans to dispense the abortion pill under new rules laid out by the Food and Drug Administration. The new rules, issued Tuesday, allow any pharmacy to become certified to dispense mifepristone, the drug that blocks a hormone needed for pregnancy and is FDA-approved for use up to 10 weeks in pregnancy. Until the changes, the agency had allowed only a handful of mail-order pharmacies and certified doctors to hand out the drug.

☆ Walgreens posts loss on $6.5 bln opioid litigation charge
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 5 (Reuters) - Drugstore chain Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) reported a net quarterly loss on Thursday as it took a $6.5 billion opioid litigation charge, sending its shares down nearly 2% in premarket trade. CVS took a pre-tax charge of $5.2 billion in its third quarter related to the settlement. It administered about 8 million vaccines in the first quarter down from 15.6 million in the same period a year earlier. In November, Walgreens said it was acquiring urgent care provider Summit Health through its VillageMD unit in a deal valued at $9 bln to expand its healthcare footprint. Excluding items, the company earned $1.16 per share in the first quarter, above Refinitiv IBES estimates of $1.14 a share.

☆ Walgreens, CVS plan to start offering abortion pills
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

Jan 4 (Reuters) - Walgreens Boot Alliance Inc (WBA.O) and CVS Health Corp (CVS.N) said on Wednesday they plan to offer abortion pills following the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) decision to allow retail pharmacies to offer the drug in the country for the first time. U.S. abortion rights were curtailed in 2022 when the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the landmark 1973 Roe vs. Wade decision. Medication abortion accounts for more than half of U.S. abortions. The decision will make the medication more accessible in states where abortion remains legal, but its impact in states that have banned abortion will be limited. CVS shares fell 1% in regular U.S. trading on Tuesday; Walgreens shares rose 0.8%.

On the benchmark S&P 500 index, rate-sensitive real estate stocks (.SPLRCR) led the losses with a 2.2% drop, while financials (.SPSY) slipped 1%. The ADP National Employment report showed a much greater-than-expected rise in private employment in December, while another report showed weekly jobless claims fell last week. The reports came a day after data showed a moderate fall in U.S. job openings, in growing evidence that the labor market remains tight. A strong labor market has been a concern for markets pummeled by rising borrowing costs as it gives the Federal Reserve a reason to raise rates for longer than expected this year. The more comprehensive nonfarm payrolls report is due on Friday, which would provide further clues on labor demand and the rate hike trajectory.

☆ Novartis to pay $245 mln to end antitrust cases over Exforge drug generics
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-29 | by ( Jonathan Stempel | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

NEW YORK, Dec 28 (Reuters) - Novartis AG (NOVN.S) said on Wednesday it will pay $245 million to end antitrust litigation accusing the Swiss drugmaker of trying to delay the launch in the United States of generic versions of its Exforge hypertension drug. The class-action litigation stemmed from a 2011 licensing agreement between Novartis and Endo International Plc's (ENDPQ.PK) Par Pharmaceutical unit. Novartis's annual U.S. sales of brand-name Exforge exceeded $400 million before generic versions were sold, court papers show. The case is In re Novartis and Par Antitrust Litigation, U.S. District Court, Southern District of New York, No. Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman and Bradley PerrettOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Flu, RSV and Covid Drive Demand for Children’s Pain Relievers and Fever Reducers
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-20 | by ( Stephanie Stamm | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +1 min

Medicines to lower fevers, clear congestion and ease aches and pains are in high demand this winter as the U.S. is experiencing a surge in pediatric cases of RSV, influenza and Covid-19. Both CVS Health Corp. and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. announced they have imposed purchase limits on children’s cold and flu medicines. Sales of children’s over-the-counter medication are up 80% compared with the same four-week period a year earlier, totaling more than $86 million, according to market-research firm IRI. Inflation has also contributed to higher dollar sales, but it is mainly rising demand that is causing the shortages, IRI said. Parents and caregivers also have fewer pediatric pain relievers to choose from, with the number of options down 7% compared with a year ago.

☆ CVS, Walgreens limit purchase of children's pain medicines
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-19 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

Dec 19 (Reuters) - Pharmacy chains CVS Health Corp (CVS.N) and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc (WBA.O) limited purchase of children's pain drugs as they face supply constraints and high demand with the United States experiencing one of the worst flu season in a decade. CVS said there is currently a two-product limit on all children's pain-relief products at all its pharmacy locations and online, while Walgreens said it had put a limit of six over-the-counter pediatric fever reducers per online transaction. Bloomberg Law, which first reported about the purchase limit, said U.S. supermarket chain Kroger Co (KR.N) was also putting a limit over the purchases to two children's pain medicine products. Kroger did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. Reporting by Raghav Mahobe and Ananya Mariam Rajesh in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini GanguliOur Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

☆ Blockchain Fails to Gain Traction in the Enterprise
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Isabelle Bousquette | ) www.wsj.com time to read: +7 min

Newsletter Sign-up WSJ | CIO Journal The Morning Download delivers daily insights and news on business technology from the CIO Journal team. Some companies say they haven’t found a compelling enough reason to use it. Many didn’t have digital record-keeping systems and had to make large upfront investments before they could start using blockchain, Walmart said. Walmart is using blockchain to track leafy greens and green bell peppers. Earlier this year, the state of Jharkhand in eastern India began using blockchain to track seed distributions to farmers.

These psychiatric drugs are regulated by the federal government as controlled substances that have high potential for abuse and addiction but are not opioids. The impact on independent pharmacies' prescriptions of psychiatric drugs from the widening crackdown on opioids has not been previously reported. It is dedicated to mitigating the abuse of controlled substances without interfering in good-faith clinical decisions made by doctors, she said. "Pharmaceutical distributors must walk a legal and ethical tightrope between providing access to necessary medications and acting to prevent diversion of controlled substances," Esposito said in a written statement. The FDA, the HHS agency that administers the list of controlled substances, did not respond to a request for comment.

“There’s no such thing as a set forecast right now,” said Sophie Kelly, senior vice president of whiskies at Diageo North America, speaking at the same event. The firm, a unit of Interpublic Group of Cos.’ Mediabrands, cut its growth forecast for next year to 4.8% from an earlier prediction of 5.8% in June. Organic revenue growth is a metric that removes the effects of currency fluctuations, acquisitions and disposals. Airbnb Inc. slashed its advertising spending and invested in brand marketing, lessening its reliance on search-engine marketing. “We knew that people are changing their behavior,” said William White, Walmart’s chief marketing officer.

Best Buy Co Inc (BBY.N) jumped 12.4%, leading gains on S&P 500 (.SPX) index, after forecasting a smaller drop in annual sales than previously estimated, confident that a ramp up in deals and discounts will lure more customers. "People are hopeful that consumers can still squeeze out a strong holiday season despite the headwinds they're facing," said Brandon Pizzurro, director of public investments at GuideStone Capital Management. "It would be an upside surprise if consumers really brought their full wallet to the table this year, probably what's driving Best Buy movement today." Gains in Best Buy boosted the S&P 500 retail (.SPXRT) sector index, but a 9.4% fall in Dollar Tree Inc (DLTR.O) capped the upside as the discount retailer lowered its annual profit forecast for the second time. Energy (.SPNY) led gains among the 11 major S&P 500 sector indexes, up 3.0%, as oil prices rose after top exporter Saudi Arabia said OPEC+ stuck with output cuts.

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