CHICAGO — Walgreens’ recent partnerships with companies that manage prescription drug benefits are putting a serious dent in the business of one of its retail pharmacy competitors.
CVS Health announced Tuesday that it expects to lose 40 million retail prescriptions next year because of new retail pharmacy networks that don’t include CVS, such as those created by Walgreens’ partnerships.
This year, Walgreens, headquartered in Chicago, formed partnerships with a number of pharmacy benefit managers, which are companies that manage prescription drug benefits for insurers and employers. Those partnerships make Walgreens a preferred pharmacy for people with certain health insurance plans, meaning medications for those customers are significantly cheaper at Walgreens and other in-network pharmacies than at drugstores that aren’t part of those networks.
In September, Express Scripts, the pharmacy benefit manager for the U.S. military’s health insurance program, announced that on Dec. 1 it would add Walgreens to the military health insurance program’s network and drop CVS. That means those with military health insurance, known as Tricare, will have to get their prescriptions at Walgreens or other in-network pharmacies starting Dec. 1 or pay significantly higher rates for them elsewhere.
