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DEERFIELD, Ill. The healthcare landscape is changing. There’s a new value-driven consumer who has emerged and, in light of this, retail pharmacy giant Walgreens is in the midst of an evolution into “a retail health and daily living store” and is on a mission to “own well.” That was a key message that an optimistic Greg Wasson, Walgreens president and CEO, had for Wall Street during the company’s Analyst Day conference on Thursday in Chicago.

WOONSOCKET, R.I. —CVS Caremark has been heavily focused on the healthcare arena, leveraging its various points of care to improve medication outcomes and lower healthcare costs—but that’s not to say that the front end has fallen by the wayside. In fact, the retailer is in the midst of writing a prescription for front-end growth that involves a new store brand and new beauty innovations.

NEW YORK CVS Caremark has no doubt been a trailblazer in the healthcare arena, positioning itself along the front lines to leverage its various points of care to improve outcomes and lower healthcare costs. But with all that CVS Caremark has done and will continue to do in the healthcare space -- and it is no doubt a lot -- it still has more than 7,000 retail locations, and the front of the store continues to be a critical part of its business and a major growth driver for the company.

Latinas tend to over-index on beauty products as, in their opinion, beauty means power and upward mobility, Mintel’s senior analyst of multicultural reports, Leylha Ahuile, said during a recent webinar. This is one reason why these 23.6 million beauty mavens are a sweet spot for brands.

WHAT IT MEANS AND WHY IT'S IMPORTANT Emergency room visits have been -- and continue to be -- on the rise, and if the recently passed healthcare reform is not coupled with an aggressive game plan to deliver healthcare services to the newly insured, the ER will continue to be the first place many seek care. One way to ease the pressure on overburdened ERs: Establish more retail-based clinics.

“I’m not willing to say it was a great move at this point.”—BusinessWeek Feb. 12, 2009.

That’s what Morningstar analyst Mitchell Corwin had to say about the 2007 merger that created the $76 billion healthcare goliath now known as CVS Caremark. He’s entitled to his opinion, but you have to believe there was probably a whole lot of people waiting to greet Columbus upon his return to remind him that despite his killer suntan, the world most definitely was still flat. And no amount of corn or cocoa would make them think otherwise.