Grab some milk, see your doc

By Erin Lawley Posted on November 18, 2009 at 7:42 am

Growth in the retail health clinic market slowed in 2008 and dipped to a negative 5 percent in the first five months of 2009, according to a new report by the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions.
Locally based company The Little Clinic, which operates clinics in Kroger grocery stores, now has 9 percent market share and 103 clinics, according to the report — making it the third-largest industry player behind mammoths MinuteClinic (owned by CVS) and Take Care (owned by Walgreen’s).

Despite the current setback, Deloitte expects the once-booming industry will experience a second wave of growth between 2010 and 2014.

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Tags: CVS Caremark Corp., Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, grocery stores, Minute Clinic LLC, pharmacies, retail health care, The Little Clinic, Walgreen Co.  

CVS Caremark is just so misunderstood

By Geert De Lombaerde Posted on September 1, 2009 at 9:03 am

A week after Barron’s stated the case for the shares of CVS Caremark (Ticker: CVS), Fortune weighs in on the topic. Even though the stock has beaten the S&P by 16 points this year, it trails its peers.

The market questions whether a drugstore chain, which has expertise in retail sales, can run a PBM, which negotiates on behalf of employers and insurance plans to purchase drugs from pharmaceutical companies. As a result, CVS’s price/earnings ratio for the next 12 months is 13, while Walgreen’s is 15 and Medco’s is 20. That makes CVS, which is poised for strong growth, a bargain - no matter how the health-reform battle plays out.

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Tags: Barron's, CVS Caremark Corp., Fortune, pharmacy benefit management, retail, retail health care, stock valuation  

Caremark powers CVS earnings lift

By Geert De Lombaerde Posted on August 4, 2009 at 7:23 am

Another strong quarter from its pharmacy benefit management division — revenues were up 15 percent from a year ago — has led CVS Caremark to again raise its earnings guidance. Shares of the company (Ticker: CVS) are up more than 4 percent in pre-market trading.

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Tags: CVS Caremark Corp., earnings estimates, earnings reports, pharmacy benefit management, retail health care, retail pharmacies  

One in six MinuteClinics to close for ’seasonal’ reasons

By Geert De Lombaerde Posted on March 10, 2009 at 7:33 am

Anytime you’re being compared to the dot-com bubble, things can’t be that good. The Wall Street Journal updates us on what appears to be a re-examination of the retail health care market.

“For those in the industry, the nagging problem is what to do with the extra capacity we have in the off season, and unless that problem gets solved this industry will continue to have a major structural weakness,” Tom Charland, a consultant and chief executive of Merchant Medicine, told Dow Jones.

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Tags: CVS Caremark Corp., Merchant Medicine LLC, Minute Clinic LLC, retail health care