Content about Happy Harry's

Everybody loves a comeback story, and it looks as though the pharmacy retail industry has one of its own in the making as Rite Aid’s latest earnings report showed another strong quarter for the Camp Hill, Pa.-based chain, which has been steadily growing its sales and narrowing its losses for several quarters already.




It may be more than just coincidence that Walgreens has decided to really blow the doors off of retail pharmacy in the same city that screams horsepower every year over Memorial Day weekend. Because even as those Indy 500 drivers are chugging their milk at the Brickyard, Walgreens’ pharmacists will be celebrating a victory of their own as they and their customers help redefine what “drug store” means in shopper parlance.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT — Former Walgreens' CEO Jeff Rein said profit pressure might cause Walgreens to think differently about acquisitions than it did in the past. The loss of Express Scripts patients (who are incidentally taking their prescriptions to the nearest Walgreens competitor), coupled with a significant generic wave through 2012 — moreso in the back half of the year — potentially could keep Walgreens from posting a profit through fiscal 2012. "Walgreens is in a real poor position here," Rein said.

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Walgreens on Thursday inserted another piece into its comprehensive healthcare offering, just in time for the PBM selling season, with the acquisition of BioScrip's community specialty pharmacies.

Walgreens and BioScrip announced that they have entered into a definitive agreement under which Walgreens will acquire certain assets of BioScrip's community specialty pharmacies and centralized specialty and mail-service pharmacy businesses for a total deal value of approximately $225 million.

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Walgreens on Friday announced that its stores will be open Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.

Through Dec. 23, most Walgreens locations will be open until midnight, the company stated. On Christmas Eve, nearly all stores will be open regular hours — pharmacies will be open from 9 a.m. until 5 p.m. — and on Christmas Day, non-24 hour stores will be open from 9 a.m. until 6 p.m. while all 24-hour stores and pharmacies will continue to remain open around the clock.

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Walgreens’ stock was trading up 30 cents to $43.03 on the New York Stock Exchange mid-morning on Wednesday thanks to favorable same-store sales growth of 4.8% for the month of June versus an analyst consensus estimate of 2.8%.

HOCKESSIN, Del. — Walgreens is 10 stores into transforming the popular Happy Harry’s Delaware pharmacy brand into Walgreens stores both inside and out, the News Journal, a Delaware daily, reported earlier this week.

By the end of the year, Happy Harry’s will be no more. Walgreens acquired Happy Harry’s in 2006, but decided to keep the venerable brand name at the time.

DEERFIELD, Ill. — Shortly after announcing a record-setting first quarter last month, Walgreens reported on Wednesday that its December sales rose 7.5% to $6.8 billion.

The chain said that Duane Reade stores, which Walgreens acquired in April 2010, contributed 2.5 percentage points.

Meanwhile, Walgreens also raked in a 9.5% increase for its total front-end sales, thanks to a spike in customer traffic and basket size. Pharmacy sales for the chain, which accounted for 58.6% of total sales for the month, saw a 6% boost.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Scale matters.

(THE NEWS: Walgreens names SVP pharmaceutical development, market access. For the full story, click here)