CVS Pharmacy Chain Buys Target Pharmacies

Published on: 07.08.2015

The blockbuster news in the pharmacy world is that, once the Federal Trade Commission approves the final sale, CVS is buying Target's pharmacy business. And it is a really big deal: Target ran 1,660 pharmacies in their stores, plus 80 clinics. CVS is buying all of that for $1.9 billion. CVS already runs 1000 in-store clinics. They plan on opening more pharmacies, some of them in small-format stores, called TargetExpress, that will be run by Target. Their big plan is to have 1,500 clinics by 2017. 

    For customers, not much will change. The name over the pharmacy in your local Target will read 'CVS' and in-store clinics will be called Minute Clinics. Target had been losing money on their pharmacies, since only 5 to 7% of their customers were coming in to use the pharmacy. They were only seeing 439,000 patients a year.

     Compare that to CVS, which sees 24 million patients. They are part of a push to have lots of store-front clinics which will provide relatively cheap health care for people's routine medical needs. The CVS Minute Clinics employ nurse practitioners and physician assistants to administer vaccines, diagnose common illnesses, and run basic lab tests. They have both the expertise and clout to take advantage of the changing health care landscape. Target is essentially ceding the field to them so they can focus on selling the groceries, clothes and cosmetics.

  The pharmaceutical business is growing rapidly, and it is pretty clear just from watching CVS that pharmacies are changing to meet the demand. This includes expanding into clinics and consolidating whenever possible. Anyone looking into following their lead will need new precision scales for the lab tests and pill counters that fit their expanding business. If your pharmacy is looking for the weighing technology to keep up with the field, contact us. We're experts.