As ObamaCare Launches, Walgreen Profit Soars

Walgreen Walgreen Co., the giant pharmacy that is pushing far more into providing well being care providers past the prescription counter, stated its first quarter income jumped 68 %.

The jump in revenue to $ 695 million, or 72 cents a share in the quarter ended Nov. thirty compares to $ 413 million, or 43 cents in the identical period in 2012. Income rose nearly six

Walgreen Co. is pushing more beyond just offering prescriptions into other health care companies in component to consider benefit of newly insured customers under the Reasonably priced Care Act.  (Photo credit: Phillip Pessar)

percent to $ 18.three billion.

Despite what organization chief executive officer Greg Wasson described as a still “soft economy,” Walgreens benefited from a wave of generic drug introductions to the market as nicely as price financial savings and new revenue from the partnership it and international pharmacy chain Alliance Boots negotiated with wholesaler AmerisourceBergen AmerisourceBergen (ABC). The Alliance Boots relationship alone contributed 14 cents a share to Walgreens’ outcomes.

Prescription revenue, which account for virtually 65 percent of Walgreens complete sales, rose seven.3 %.

But Wasson and other Walgreen executives informed Wall Street analysts that the firm continues to push even more into delivering a lot more health care providers this kind of as vaccines, services in its overall health clinics and past as far more Americans acquire health insurance coverage coverage from the Inexpensive Care Act. Walgreen, as well as rivals like CVS/Caremark (CVS) and Wal-Mart (WMT) have been expanding solutions to turn out to be more of a provider of healthcare care, especially in the spot of principal care solutions like vaccines, immunizations and therapy of regimen maladies.

Wasson explained the business desires to carry “more and much more services” in addition to pharmacy.

Even though Wasson cautioned analysts that it was probably also early to know all the implications from the rollout of the well being law, which will start January 1 providing broader coverage to millions of Americans, he mentioned the firm is “well positioned” to serve them.

“We expect the Reasonably priced Care Act to carry a lot more individuals into the method,” mentioned Kermit Crawford, president of Walgreens pharmacy, wellness and wellness division. “We are nicely positioned to serve these individuals.”

As ObamaCare Launches, Walgreen Profit Soars