Walgreens

On July 12, 2006, David Bernauer stepped down as CEO of Walgreens and was replaced by company president Jeff Rein, who was later named chief executive officer and chairman of the board. That year, Walgreens acquired the Happy Harry's chain in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey.[13] On October 10, 2008, Rein abruptly quit as CEO and was replaced by Alan G. McNally as chairman and acting CEO.[14] On January 26, 2009, Gregory Wasson was named CEO effective February 1, 2009.[15]

In 2010, Walgreens acquired New York City-area chain Duane Reade for $1.075 billion, including debt, and continued to use the Duane Reade name on some stores in the New York City metropolitan area.[16] In March 2011, Walgreens acquired Drugstore.com for $409 million.[17] On June 19, 2012: Walgreens paid $6.7 billion for a 45% interest in Alliance Boots.[18] That year, Walgreens acquired Mid-South drug store chain operating under the USA Drug, Super D Drug, May's Drug, Med-X, and Drug Warehouse banners.[19]

In 2011 Walgreens announced it would end its relationship with Express Scripts,[20] a prescription benefits manager. A coalition of minority groups, led by Al Sharpton's National Action Network,[21] sent letters urging CEO Gregory Wasson to reconsider. Groups sending letters were National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference,[22] the Congress of Racial Equality,[23] Hispanic Leadership Fund[24] and others. In 2012, Walgreens announced that it would continue to participate in Express Scripts.

On September 10, 2013, Walgreens announced it had acquired Kerr Drug.[25] In August 2014, Walgreens purchased the remaining 55% of Alliance Boots. The combined company became known as the Walgreens Boots Alliance and was headquartered in Chicago.[26][27] In December of that year, Walgreens purchased the Almus Pharmaceutical generic brand.[28] Also that year, Walgreens acquired Farmacias Benavides.[29] On July 28, 2016, Walgreens announced it would shut down Drugstore.com, as well as Beauty.com, in order to focus on its own Walgreens.com website.[30] On September 19, 2017, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) approved Walgreen's fourth attempt to purchase Rite Aid, with 1,932 stores for $4.38 billion total.[31]

In February 2020, Walgreens announced the appointment of Richard Ashworth as president of the company, but he left within the year. Prior to the appointment, he served as president of operations for Walgreens.[32][33]

Logo from 2005 until 2020

In March 2008, Walgreens settled a lawsuit with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) that alleged the company discriminated against African Americans for $24 million.[43] The settlement was split between the 10,000 African-American employees of the company.[43] In the agreement, Walgreens avoided any admission of guilt.

The decree, one of the largest monetary settlements in a race case by the EEOC, provides for the payment of over $24 million to a class of thousands of African American workers and orders comprehensive injunctive relief designed to improve the company's promotion and store assignment practices.

In September 2011, Walgreens settled a lawsuit with the EEOC that claimed that a store improperly terminated a worker with diabetes for eating a package of the store's food while working to stop a hypoglycemia attack.[44]

A Walgreens in Little Egg Harbor, New Jersey, which opened in 2006

In June 2008, after Walgreens was sued for drug fraud—"switching dosage forms on three medications without doctor approvals in order to boost profits"—Walgreens agreed to stop these actions and pay $35 million to the federal government, 42 states, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico," as reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel.[45][46][47]

Also in June 2008, Walgreens "agreed to pay $35 million to the U.S. and 42 states and Puerto Rico for overcharging state Medicaid programs by filling prescriptions with more expensive dosage forms of ranitidine, a generic form of Zantac, and fluoxetine, a generic form of Prozac."[48][49]

In 2009 Walgreens threatened to leave the Medicaid program, the state and federal partnership to provide health insurance coverage to the poor, in Delaware over reimbursement rates. Walgreens was the largest pharmacy chain in the state and the only chain to make such a threat.[50] The state of Delaware and Walgreens reached an agreement on payment rates and the crisis was averted.[51]

In 2010 Walgreens stopped accepting Medicaid in Washington state, leaving its one million Medicaid recipients unable to get their prescriptions filled at these 121 stores.[52]

On April 20, 2012, the U.S. Department of Justice announced that Walgreens agreed to pay $7.9 million in a settlement. The fine related to allegations of violations of the federal Anti-Kickback Statute and the False Claims Act regarding beneficiaries of federal health care programs.[53]

In January 2019, Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. agreed to pay more than $269 million to settle federal and state lawsuits that accused the corporation of overbilling federal healthcare programs.[54]

Walgreens was named in a lawsuit by the United Food and Commercial Workers Unions and Employers Midwest Health Benefits Fund in the Northern District Court of Illinois in January 2012. The suit alleged that Walgreens and Par Pharmaceutical violated the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act[55] in "at least two widespread schemes to overcharge" for generic drugs.[48]

The lawsuit alleges drugstore chain Walgreen and generic pharmaceutical maker Par established a partnership in which Par manufactured and/or marketed generic versions of antacid Zantac and antidepressant Prozac in dosage forms that weren't subject to private and governmental reimbursement limitations. It further said Walgreen purchased those dosage forms from Par at a cost substantially higher than the widely prescribed dosage forms and then "systematically and unlawfully filled its customers' prescriptions with Par's more expensive products rather than the inexpensive dosage forms that were prescribed by physicians."

In September 2012, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) accused Walgreens of endangering public safety and barred the company from shipping oxycodone and other controlled drugs from its Jupiter, Florida, distribution center. The DEA said that Walgreens failed to maintain proper controls to ensure it didn't dispense drugs to addicts and drug dealers. The DEA also said that six of Walgreens' Florida pharmacies ordered in excess of a million oxycodone pills a year. In contrast, in 2011 the average pharmacy in the U.S. ordered 73,000 oxycodone tablets a year according to the DEA. One Walgreens pharmacy located in Fort Myers, Florida, ordered 95,800 pills in 2009, but by 2011, this number had jumped to 2.2 million pills in one year. Another example was a Walgreens pharmacy located in Hudson, Florida, a town of 34,000 people near Clearwater, that purchased 2.2 million pills in 2011, the DEA said. Immediate suspension orders are an action taken when the DEA believes a registrant, such as a pharmacy or a doctor, is "an imminent danger to the public safety." All DEA licensees "have an obligation to ensure that medications are getting into the hands of legitimate patients," said Mark Trouville, former DEA special agent in charge of the Miami Field Division. "When they choose to look the other way, patients suffer and drug dealers prosper."

The Jupiter, Florida, distribution center, which opened in 2001, is one of 12 such distribution centers owned by Walgreens. Since 2009, Walgreens' Jupiter facility has been the largest distributor of oxycodone in the state of Florida, the DEA said. Over the past three years, its market share has increased, and 52 Walgreens are among the top 100 oxycodone purchasers in the state, the DEA said.[56]

In 2013 United States Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said Walgreens committed "an unprecedented number" of recordkeeping and dispensing violations. Walgreens was fined $80 million, the largest fine in the history of the Controlled Substances Act at that time.[57]

In November 2021, a federal jury found that Walgreens, along with CVS and Walmart, "had substantially contributed to" the opioid crisis.[58] The trial lasted six weeks with the jury returning a verdict finding the pharmacies liable. It was the first trial where pharmacy companies defended themselves amidst the opioid epidemic.[59]

In May of 2022, Walgreen's agreed to pay a settlement of $683,000,000 to the state of Florida concerning opioid sales. Walgreens did not admit to wrongdoing as part of the settlement.[60]

Wisconsin's Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection fined Walgreens over differences between shelf price and scanned price and for signage in 2012. In 2013, Walgreens paid a $29,241 fine.[61]

The New York State Attorney General announced in April 2016 that a settlement was reached in the complaint that Walgreens used misleading advertising and overcharged consumers. Walgreens would pay $500,000 in penalties, fees and costs, and change advertising and other practices.[62]

A judge in Kansas City, Missouri, ordered Walgreens to pay a $309,000 fine for pricing discrepancies in 2015.[63]

In December 2012, a judge ordered Walgreens to pay $16.57 million to settle a lawsuit claiming that over 600 stores were illegally dumping hazardous waste and unlawfully disposing of customer records containing confidential medical information.[64]

A Santa Clara County Superior Court judge allowed Walgreens to pay $2.25 million in January 2018 to resolve a consumer protection lawsuit brought by Bay Area prosecutors alleging that the company sold expired baby food, infant formula, and over-the-counter drugs. The suit also alleged that Walgreens violated state law by charging more than the lowest posted or advertised price for items.[65]

In June 2018, a staff pharmacist at a Walgreens in Peoria, Arizona, refused to give a woman medication to end her pregnancy. The medication was prescribed by a doctor after tests revealed that the pregnancy would end in a miscarriage. The woman said she was left "in tears and humiliated". Walgreens responded that its policy "allows pharmacists to step away from filling a prescription for which they have a moral objection".[66][67]

In September 2018, Walgreens agreed to pay $34.5 million to settle a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) investigation on charges of misleading investors on financial targets. The SEC alleged that former CEO Greg Wasson and then-CFO Wade Miquelon acted "negligently" in giving financial estimates.[68]

In January 2019, Walgreens paid $269.2 million for two separate counts of defrauding the federal and 39 state governments in over-billing schemes.[69]

In February 2020, Walgreens agreed to pay $7.5 million to settle a consumer protection lawsuit accusing the company of placing people's health at risk by permitting an unlicensed person to work as a pharmacist without an adequate background check. This person had handled over 745,000 prescriptions, which included filling over 100,000 prescriptions for controlled substances. The State of California, Alameda County, and Santa Clara County all took part in the investigation.[70] When it was asked by the California Board of Pharmacy during the investigation, Walgreens was unable to furnish a copy of her employment application. Although there are records that the person had attended classes in a university pharmacy program, there are no records that she had completed her degree requirements that would allow her to take the pharmacist licensing exams.[71]

In March 2021, a class action against Walgreens resulted in a settlement of $4.5 million. Walgreens was accused of wage theft and labor law violations of its employees in California between 2010 and 2017, including that Walgreens "rounded down employees' hours on their timecards, required employees to pass through security checks before and after their shift without compensating them for time worked, and failed to pay premium wages to employees who were denied legally required meal breaks."[72][73][74][75][76]

In September 2021, a Walgreens pharmacist in Baltimore, Maryland, accidentally gave a 4-year old girl a full adult dosage of the Pfizer–BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine instead of the intended Influenza vaccine. So far, the little girl has not suffered any major side effects. A Walgreens spokesperson said such mistakes are "extremely rare" and that the company's top priority is patient safety.[77]

A few weeks later, a Walgreens pharmacist in Evansville, Indiana, accidentally gave a 4-year old boy, a 5-year old girl, and their parents a full adult dosage each of the Pfzier vaccine instead of intended flu vaccine. Unlike the Maryland girl, both of the Indiana children immediately got sick enough that the parents took them to a pediatric cardiologist for treatment. At the time of the injections, the FDA had not approve the use of the Pfizer vaccine to children below the age of 12. Although Pfizer was in the process of seeking approval for use in children ages five to 11 with the dosage that would be one third that for an adult, Pfizer had not asked permission to vaccinate children age four or younger. Walgreens refused to comment on the case when requested by news media.[78][79]

In August 2022, the state of Tennessee sued Walgreens, alleging that the pharmacy fueled the state's opioid epidemic by failing to maintain effective controls against abuse of the prescription painkiller. The lawsuit claims that Walgreens willfully flooded the market with an oversupply of prescription narcotics in violation of public nuisance and consumer protection laws. [80] [81]

In August 2022, a federal judge in Cleveland awarded $650 million to Lake County and Trumbull County in a suit that included CVS and Walmart. Lawyers representing the counties said the companies were responsible for $3.3 billion in damages. Two other companies, Rite Aid and Giant Eagle, were also sued by the counties but settled before trial for an undisclosed amount.[82]

• Bacon, John U. (2004). America's Corner Store: Walgreen's Prescription for Success. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 978-0-471-42617-2. Retrieved 15 July 2020.