Retail pharmacy giants have been straining under the intense headwinds hitting the industry this year — and Walgreens’ most recent earnings provided another case in point.
The company said in October that it plans to close about 1,200 lower-performing stores over the next three years, citing changing consumer habits, rising competition from chains like Walmart and battles with pharmacy benefit managers over reimbursement as chief challenges. The pharmacy chain operates nearly 9,000 stores in the U.S.
As Walgreens attempts to regain footing, the company plans to return its focus to its “legacy strength as a retail pharmacy-led company,” CEO Tim Wentworth said on an Oct. 15 earnings call.
What will the revamp mean for its clinical trials ambitions?
Launched in 2022, Walgreens’ clinical trials business falls under its healthcare segment. In the last quarter, that segment saw a healthy 7% bump in sales over the previous year, which was one bright spot company executives pointed to on the October earnings call. But overall company operating losses also topped $14 billion in fiscal year 2024, and Walgreens has indicated it could sell one of its key segments — the primary care business VillageMD.
Still, Ramita Tandon, Walgreens’ chief clinical trials officer, said in an interview that the company’s clinical trials plans remain full steam ahead.
“There’s been no impact to the business,” Tandon said, pointing out that the upcoming store closures will not affect Walgreens’ 20 clinical trials centers.
Overall, Walgreens’ clinical trials services are interwoven with day-to-day drugstore operations, which will remain aligned with wider plans to refocus on its legacy as a pharmacy.
“We are in lock step with the wider business model,” Tandon said.
Walgreens’ pharmacy infrastructure and clinical trials partnerships have leaned on its capacity to both capture patient data and recruit diverse populations.
“When a patient picks up a prescription, we have built the clinical trial activity into the system so that pharmacists get flagged that they could be eligible for a trial,” Tandon said, explaining the strategies Walgreens uses to drive recruitment.
Boehringer Ingelheim announced in May that it is teaming up with Walgreens to recruit and run a Phase 3 study for an obesity and diabetes candidate at its clinical trial centers, for example.
More recently, Walgreens partnered with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority to bolster decentralized clinical trial models that could be used during a health crisis.
“I built the business to tackle two issues — the lack of representation and the lack of trial accessibility,” Tandon said. “We look for public and private partnerships that help us unlock those issues.”
So far, Walgreens’ clinical trial recruitment efforts have reached more than five million patients, Tandon said.
Walgreens has kept the business going, too, while other pharmacy giants have dropped out. CVS, which has closed hundreds of stores in the last few years, shuttered its clinical trials business in 2023 after just two years.
Tandon said she recognizes Walgreens’ clinical trials business is not a nonprofit, and that each partnership must drive revenue to the organization. Going forward, “ongoing partnerships with pharma are going to be crucial” while the company considers bringing on new types of companies, Tandon said.
“As others potentially come into the ecosystem, like CROs, we evaluate each possibility on a case-by-case basis to look at trial objectives and make sure it drives value for both the partner and Walgreens,” Tandon said.
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- Source: https://www.biopharmadive.com/news/walgreens-clinical-trials-ramita-tandon-challenges/733725/