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Walgreens and the Dept. of Veterans Affairs are working together to improve coordination of care for VA-enrolled patients. Through the partnership...VA providers will be able to see the entire medication and immunization history of the VA-enrolled patient if they receive prescriptions and immunizations at Walgreens...“This arrangement is the first of its kind, and it’s a strong collaboration,” said VA Sec. Robert Wilkie. “Partnerships like this will help VA continue to improve the way we care for Veterans.”...The VA-Walgreens exchange eliminates the need for providers to gather medication history from patients who fill their scripts at Walgreens...

A grand jury has indicted CEO Elizabeth Holmes and...Sunny Balwani for alleged fraud at Theranos, the disgraced Silicon Valley company that once promised to revolutionize blood testing in a pitch that was too good to be true...The criminal charges filed by federal prosecutors allege that Holmes and Balwani bilked investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars while also defrauding doctors and patients through years of lies that put thousands of people in personal danger...(they) are charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud and nine counts of wire fraud in the indictment, which was handed down on Thursday and unsealed on Friday. They now each face a maximum of 20 years in prison and up to $2.7 million in fines, a figure that doesn’t include any cash the government might demand as restitution for the alleged fraud...Holmes and Balwani lied brazenly about their technology’s capabilities — even though they knew it was inaccurate, unreliable, slow, and limited in terms of the tests it could perform...They marketed their blood test sold in Walgreens stores to consumers in Arizona and California, the indictment says, even though they knew it could not consistently report accurate levels of calcium, chloride, and potassium, among other medical tests. They told investors that they were using their own proprietary machines to test patients’ blood, when in fact they were using commercially available analyzers they’d purchased...

Walgreens said Wednesday that it will shutter 600 stores early next year following its $4.4 billion Rite Aid deal...The closures will be mostly Rite Aid stores, but may include some Walgreens locations...The company plans to shut down stores within a mile of another Walgreens or Rite Aid location. The closings will start next spring and will continue over an 18-month period...The move is expected to cost Walgreens $450 million, but should save the Deerfield, Illinois-based company $300 million yearly by 2020...In September, the Walgreens Boots Alliance received regulatory approval to buy 1,900 Rite Aid stores from the Pennsylvania-based drugstore chain. The deal will make Walgreens the country's largest retail pharmacy by store locations. Walgreens now has more than 13,200 stores worldwide...The company said it expects to complete integration of the acquired stores within three years at an estimated cost of approximately $750 million.

In the largest and most comprehensive study of its kind, the Tribune tested 255 pharmacies to see how often stores would dispense dangerous drug pairs without warning patients. Fifty-two percent of the pharmacies sold the medications without mentioning the potential interaction, striking evidence of an industry-wide failure that places millions of consumers at risk...CVS...had the highest failure rate of any chain in the Tribune tests, dispensing the medications with no warning 63 percent of the time. Walgreens...had the lowest failure rate at 30 percent — but that's still missing nearly 1 in 3 interactions... There is a very high sense of urgency to pursue this issue and get to the root cause...test after test, other pharmacists dispensed dangerous drug pairs at a fast-food pace, with little attention paid to customers. They failed to catch combinations that could trigger a stroke, result in kidney failure, deprive the body of oxygen or lead to unexpected pregnancy with a risk of birth defects...The Tribune study...exposes fundamental flaws in the pharmacy industry. Safety laws are not being followed, computer alert systems designed to flag drug interactions either don't work or are ignored, and some pharmacies emphasize fast service over patient safety. Several chain pharmacists, in interviews, described assembly-line conditions in which staff hurried to fill hundreds of prescriptions a day.

The company plans to open a 200,000-square-foot space in Chicago's Old Post Office Building...Walgreens expects about 1,300 employees will relocate from its Deerfield, Illinois, headquarters...Walgreens is the latest of a slew of companies shifting operations out of the suburbs and into the city. Some companies, including food giants McDonald's and Kraft Heinz, have even relocated their headquarters to Chicago...It's one way to attract employees, particularly millennials, in a competitive labor market. In announcing the move, Walgreens said it will help the company "meet the needs of its current and future workforce while continuing to attract and retain the best talent."

Elizabeth Holmes was an even smoother scamster than anyone thought -- and she's apparently getting to keep her job...The SEC just charged the 34-year-old onetime billionaire with fraud related to claims she made about her blood-testing company, Theranos. To settle the charges, Holmes is giving up 18.9 million Theranos shares, losing voting control of the company, paying a $500,000 fine and will be barred from running a public company for ten years. She will, however, continue as the chief executive of Theranos, which under the fraudulent scheme described by the SEC raised $700 million...What emerges from the SEC's complaint is this: ...that Theranos’ sales were much lower than the company had led outsiders to believe. But the SEC puts a fine point on it: At a time when Theranos claimed it had annual sales of $100 million, sales were just $100,000...SEC says Holmes showed...(Walgreens) executives written evidence that Theranos would be able to run just about any blood test on its machines by the end of that year, using drops of blood taken from finger pricks instead of using needles. The next year, the pharmacy executives raised concerns with Holmes that this device might need to be approved by the FDA. But they missed the scale of her deception...Theranos miniLab was supposed to have been rolled out...the machine wasn't ready at all. That's when, (Sunny Balwani) Balwani and Holmes told their engineers to start using other companies' machines in unapproved ways to analyze finger-prick samples, the complaint says. Theranos allegedly never told the pharmacy executives...

The pharmacy community is working to make sure Florida residents are prepared as Hurricane Irma bears down on the state. Gov. Rick Scott authorized pharmacies to dispense up to 30-day emergency prescription refills to patients...In addition, CVS Pharmacy and Walgreens are emphasizing the importance being prepared by keeping prescriptions stocked, or at least on-hand. "Prescription preparedness is one of the most important steps individuals and families can take in the lead up to potentially severe weather, and CVS Pharmacy is working to ensure that our patients have the medications they need in advance of the storm," says CVS Health EVP retail pharmacy and supply chain Kevin Hourican. Walgreens is reminding patients to follow evacuation orders and get to a safe location before refilling their prescriptions, noting that all locations can access a patient's records and that the Walgreens app can be used to refill prescriptions and pick them up nearby.

A woman in Arizona made the brave choice this week, to make a very private loss — a miscarriage — into a public discussion, in the hopes that her story can save other women from what she went through at her local Walgreens. The pharmacist there refused to fill the prescription required to help her end her pregnancy, citing moral objections, even though her fetus no longer had a heartbeat...Pharmacists have been known to refuse to give women this medication, as well as prescriptions for over-the-counter emergency contraception pills, because of their anti-abortion beliefs...

While industry watchers were eagerly anticipating Amazon’s move into prescription drugs, the e-commerce behemoth snuck into over-the-counter sales with help from store brand expert Perrigo...Amazon rolled out a line of consumer health products, called Basic Care...The portfolio—consisting of 60 Perrigo-made treatments—sets Amazon up to put the squeeze on retailers of OTC therapies...Amazon already sells branded OTC products...including those from Perrigo’s GoodSense brand...But with Basic Care, Amazon can undercut its competition to reap just a hair in the profit margin column...just because Amazon’s got the lowest prices doesn’t mean consumers will consistently order the Perrigo brands online instead of running out to a Walgreens or CVS when they need something.

In response to the devastation associated with Hurricane Harvey, several retailers have stepped up their giving...H-E-B...early into the storm donated $100,000 toward Hurricane Harvey relief efforts and have begun accepting customer donations for the families and communities devastated by the storm...H-E-B has received numerous requests from customers about how they can help support victims and communities affected…In Victoria, Texas, Walgreens loaned the city a generator in order for them to help power their sewage facility and prevent from comprising the water supply of 70,000 residents with sewage backflow. "We proactively staged generators in the area and were able to quickly provide one to the city during this emergency,"...CVS Health and the CVS Health Foundation gave $200,000 in cash and in-kind product donations to organizations helping with relief efforts for those affected...The CVS Health Foundation has donated $50,000 each to the Greater Houston Community Foundation and the American Red Cross, as well as $25,000 to Salvation Army, to aid the greater Houston area in supporting local residents...Walmart and the Walmart Foundation have made a $1 million commitment to provide support for relief efforts through cash and product donations. As a part of this commitment, Walmart is working closely with organizations like the American Red Cross, Salvation Army and Convoy of Hope while coordinating efforts with elected officials and governmental entities to help meet the needs of those affected...