WOONSOCKET – CVS Caremark Corp. said it is willing to continue discussions with Walgreen Co. after announcing plans to cut the drugstore chain out of its retail pharmacy network.
CVS is still open to talks “in an effort to achieve a reasonable business resolution,” Per Lofberg, president of CVS Caremark’s pharmacy-benefits management business, said Wednesday in an e-mail. “However, any such discussions will be conducted in light of, and subject to, our clients’ need for affordable pharmacy care.”
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Walgreen said this week it wouldn’t participate in any new CVS Caremark drug plans, prompting CVS Caremark to say Wednesday it would sever existing agreements. That means participants in CVS Caremark’s drug plans will no longer be able to fill prescriptions at Walgreen stores starting in 30 days.
Walgreen CEO Greg Wasson said he is confident that the chain will be able to make up the lost CVS Caremark revenue. Walgreen’s agreement with CVS Caremark accounts for about 7 percent of sales, which topped $60 billion in its latest fiscal year.
Wasson aims to compensate by creating more clinics at corporate work sites, adjusting costs in some markets, providing prescription drugs directly to employers and expanding Walgreen’s respiratory and infusion medication business, he said Wednesday in an interview.
CVS Caremark would have to ensure that patients aren’t restricted from Walgreen pharmacies and provide “acceptable” reimbursement to resolve the dispute, Wasson said in the interview. The reimbursement would also have to be predictable and notification would have to be provided when CVS Caremark moved patients to other plans, he said.
“If CVS Caremark is willing to meet our needs in those areas, we’ll have an agreement,” Michael Polzin, a spokesman for Walgreen, said in response to CVS’s statement that it is open to continuing talks.
The Caremark unit negotiates drug prices with manufacturers and drugstores for corporate and government clients. Drug-plan participants can then buy drugs through the mail or through the network of stores that have agreed to honor CVS Caremark’s prices, which until this week included Walgreen stores.
Deerfield, Illinois-based Walgreen dropped 78 cents, or 2.6 percent, to $29.83 Wednesday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The shares have dropped 19 percent this year, compared with a 4.8 percent decline for Woonsocket, Rhode Island-based CVS Caremark.
Additional information is available at cvscaremark.com.
