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Articles

Researchers explored the impact of PCV10 on the distribution of invasive pneumococcal disease serotypes among patients in Lithuania.

PCV10 Among Children Indirectly Protected Unvaccinated Adults 

Addressing the impacts on patients and the overall pharmacy market, Joey Mattingly, PharmD, MBA, PhD, discusses trends in pharmacies opening and closing across the country.

Independent, Chain Pharmacy Turnover Reflects Retail Business Churn

Liraglutide is the first glucagon-like peptide-1 to have a generic equivalent for both type 2 diabetes and obesity indications.

FDA Approves First Generic GLP-1 Liraglutide for Weight Loss

The approved vaccines include Novavax’s Nuvaxovid and Moderna’s Spikevax and mNexspike.

FDA Approves COVID-19 Vaccines for Patients 65 Years and Older

Drug Topics connects pharmacists across retail, health system, and specialty practice with clinical updates, pharmacy trends, and regulatory news.

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Practice Management

Join Shawn Bjorndal, PharmD, RPh, and Jesse McCullough, PharmD, for the first episode of Dispensing Leadership, a new podcast from Drug Topics and RPhAlly.

Dispensing Leadership: Defining Your Philosophy

In today’s complex health care landscape, having leadership skills is an integral part of being a pharmacist. Strong leadership skills allow pharmacists to improve workflows, successfully guide their teams, and improve health outcomes. Without them, the result is disjointed dispensing of medication, uncoordinated patient care, and stagnated innovation.

In Dispensing Leadership, a new podcast offering from Drug Topics® and RPhAlly, Shawn Bjorndal, PharmD, RPh, a visionary health care executive with over 16 years of experience and founder of PGxAlly, and Jesse McCullough, PharmD, a pharmacist-turned-entrepreneur with a passion for leadership development, will discuss essential leadership skills for pharmacists, how to develop them, and, ultimately, how to advance the pharmacy profession.

In the first episode, Shawn and Jesse discuss why defining a philosophy is key for pharmacists who want to excel in their career. Jesse outlines the key components of creating a philosophy, including taking an inventory, asking how it can serve you, and the importance of not being afraid to upgrade or change if there are better ways to think about it.

“My call to action would be, to begin by taking an inventory,” Jesse said. “What are some of those common phrases or what are some of those common beliefs that you have? Those are absolutely your philosophy. Take an inventory of that. As you make that list, you need to ask yourself, ‘How do those philosophies serve me?’ Are they beneficial or are they detrimental to the work that you are trying to do?”

Be sure to tune in every month on Drug Topics for important conversations that will help you develop your skills to become an effective pharmacy leader. All episodes of Dispensing Leadership will be available in a video format via 

, with an audio version available through Spotify.

1. Aman M, Arakawa N, Anderson C. Leadership competencies and behaviors in pharmacy: A qualitative content analysis. 2025. 

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.sapharm.2025.02.001

RPhAlly

Join Shawn Bjorndal, PharmD, RPh, and Jesse McCullough, PharmD, for the first episode of Dispensing Leadership, a new podcast from Drug Topics® and RPhAlly.

Miguel Rodriguez plays a leading role for American Pharmacies in both legal affairs and legislative advocacy. He has been a major contributor to pro-pharmacy bills passed in Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and Michigan, and has testified before Congress, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC), and legislatures in several states.

Retail pharmacies are increasingly pressing the urgency of federal reforms to bring relief from abusive practices by pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs). Vertical integration has given the “Big Three” PBMs—CVS Caremark, Express Scripts, and Optum Rx—unprecedented control over pharmacy networks, formularies, and reimbursement. As underwater reimbursements, steering, and other PBM practices drive retail pharmacies out of business at an alarming rate, hopes are pinned on Congress and the FTC for relief at the national level.

Rodriguez pointed out that a sizeable percentage of independent pharmacy patients are insured through federally funded programs, such as Medicare, Medicaid, Tricare, and the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program.

“The most efficient way of fixing all these PBM problems is by doing it through Congress because these are all federal programs,” Rodriguez said.

However, despite growing bipartisan efforts on Capitol Hill, federal reform has failed to materialize, leading independent pharmacists and advocacy groups across the country to focus on state-level reform instead. Though independents would prefer the consistency and national applicability of federal reforms, state legislatures have been a far easier challenge to tackle.

“For years, the reason that it's been at the state level is because there's been inaction at the federal level for so long,” Rodriguez said. “I think everybody would agree that most of the problems that PBMs have caused would be solved most efficiently at the federal level. But unfortunately, there's just been complete inaction—whether it's congressional inaction or the regulators, like the [FTC], or Department of Justice, Department of Labor, Pentagon.”

Rodriguez cited the Supreme Court’s landmark December 2020 decision in Rutledge vs. PCMA as a major development at the federal level that has triggered a wave of PBM reform legislation in states across the country.

“For decades since ERISA (the Employees Retirement Income Security Act of 1974) was enacted—actually 50 years ago this year—­the courts have said that states cannot touch anything involving ERISA plans. If it’s even remotely connected to an ERISA plan, any state law cannot regulate it. Well, that all changed with this Rutledge decision. The court said that a state can pass a law to reform PBM practices, even when the PBM is processing claims for an ERISA plan. And that has basically been the greenlight for states across the country to go ahead and pass PBM reforms. And so, we’ve seen what had been a trickle of PBM reform laws passed across the states has turned into a flood.”

Rodriguez acknowledges Congress’ longtime inability to pass PBM legislation but said he’s hopeful for the future because of the recent movement of bills within Congress and evidence of true bipartisan support for reforms.

“Over the past 12 to 18 months, we're seeing action that we have never seen before at the federal level, and so this is including Congress. There's been a host of PBM reform bills that have been filed both in the House and the Senate in this current session, which ends at the end of the year,” he said. “We've seen wide bipartisan support for PBM reform. One of the few things in this country that unites Republicans and Democrats is the need for PBM reform. It's just fantastic to see these political enemies coming together on this one issue.”

Rodriguez mentioned the 3 important PBM reform bills currently sitting in Congress and explained how each would play its part in regulating the practices of PBMs, often referred to as opaque and predatory. Those 3 bills include S.3430, the Better Mental Health Care, Lower-Cost Drugs, and Extenders Act of 2023; S.2973, the Modernizing and Ensuring PBM Accountability Act; and H.R.5378, the Lower Costs, More Transparency Act.

Rodriguez said H.R. 5378 is far-reaching legislation that would end some abusive PBM practices while significantly improving pharmacy reimbursement in Medicaid. He pointed out that the bill passed the House and is awaiting Senate approval.

“So now it’s up to the Senate to take action on that bill so we’re hopeful that that can take place by the end of the year.”

While Rodriguez agrees that state-level reform is necessary and is an easier path for pharmacists and advocates in expediting change within their states, the ultimate goal is to see meaningful congressional legislation signed into law.

“A lot of other organizations are out there trying to keep this idea front and center. There's a lot of competing claims for attention to the legislators, but we’ve got to keep that front and center in them, because if those things get passed, I foresee the enforcement to become much quicker than we might see at the state level,” Rodriguez said.

Rodriguez said pharmacist engagement in advocacy is a critical part of getting any significant PBM legislation through Congress. He said pharmacies have to show legislators their value to their patients and communities.

“I encourage anyone who is in this business to go out, call up your state representatives, your federal representation, and just bring them in your store. Show them what you do. They have no idea of how hard these pharmacies are working for their communities and how close they are to their communities. It’s a tremendous eye-opener for them.”

Drug Topics discussed independent pharmacy advocacy and PBM reform on the federal level with Miguel Rodriguez, Executive Vice President and general counsel for American Pharmacies. 

How Pharmacy Advocacy is Heating Up at the Federal Level

For all types of pharmacists all across the country, inventory management is key to executing a successful pharmacy operation. From ensuring maximal profitability from the medications on hand to redispensing to manufacturers when prescriptions go unused, a pharmacy’s inventory is crucial for providing direct care to community members that need it.

Jeremy Cundiff, PharmD, co-owner of Professional Pharmacy Group, sat down with 

Return Solutions offers the fastest Rx return credit in the industry, with credit received in as few as 10 days. They are also one of the oldest and most trusted Rx return providers in the industry with endorsements from over 30 group purchasing organizations. Return Solutions’ focus on independent pharmacies means their solutions are tailored to put pharmacists first so they can focus on their patients and business.

Before getting into his experience with Return Solutions, Cundiff shared his background as co-owner of Professional Pharmacy Group. Along with co-owner Neil McGarvey, Cundiff and Professional Pharmacy Group operate 4 retail pharmacies and a long-term care facility in Maryland. After opening their first store 15 years ago, Professional Pharmacy Group’s hopes are to expand the company’s offerings as pharmacy grows in the future.

“We serve as both a drug repository and a depository,” said Cundiff. He explained how the state of Maryland established a repository program for expired and unused drugs to be redispensed to those in need. “[We’re] just looking for opportunities to help people,” he continued. His original vision for re-dispensing was simply to offer his community with alternative ways to access high-cost, life-saving drugs.

Cundiff then delved into his relationship with Return Solutions and how they have allowed his business to maximize return credits and make the most of his entire inventory, even when drugs are not moving off shelves.

“Profitability is a huge issue in retail pharmacy as we all know. Every year it seems to get ramped down,” said Cundiff. He explained that expired prescriptions need to be addressed and sent back to manufacturers to maximize returns. And that’s where Return Solutions comes into play.

Cundiff discussed Return Solutions’ role in facilitating his pharmacies’ returns. With years of experience, Return Solutions is one of the premier businesses in the Rx returns industry and their grasp on manufacturers’ return policies is why companies like Professional Pharmacy Group keep their relationship with Return Solutions in such high regard.

“We’ve actually had Return Solutions for a long time,” he continued. “I’ve probably had them for 10 years now. We’ve had 2 different reps [and] that continuity of the same person coming in, knows our operation, knows where we keep our box that we do put identified returns in… [it] makes us feel like we’re getting a consistent product when they walk into our stores.”

He explained how he uses Return Solutions’ credits, how their RX returns have improved his company’s bottom line, and other areas of his business that Return Solutions has allowed him to give a deeper focus.

Jeremy Cundiff, PharmD, co-owner of Professional Pharmacy Group, joined Drug Topics to discuss Return Solutions and the company’s Rx Returns process.

Breaking Down Return Solutions’ Rx Returns Process with Jeremy Cundiff

In the digital age, long-term care (LTC) is one of the most continuously evolving areas of pharmacy. Focusing on at-home, value-based care, technology has allowed this evolution to prove success beyond the COVID-19 pandemic and into the future.

 sat down with Sandra Canally, RN, and Kara Benson, PharmD, to discuss LTC pharmacy and the partnership between Lewis Drug Inc and The Compliance Team. Canally is the founder and CEO of The Compliance Team, an industry-leading, Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services-approved health care accreditation organization celebrating 30 years of business. Benson oversees LTC operations at Lewis Drug Inc, serving pharmacies in the tri-state area of South Dakota, Iowa, and Minnesota.

From LTC pharmacy’s effects on reimbursement and at-home care to the future of LTC pharmacy, Canally and Benson delved into their partnership and how accreditation has allowed pharmacy operations to thrive.

“Certainly, post pandemic, there’s a greater influence on the use of telehealth,” said Canally. Canally and Benson incorporate telehealth into much of their day-to-day operations. They discussed its ability to bridge the gap between the pharmacy and patients, especially those in hospice or nursing homes. “The biggest thing that we’ve been seeing is integration via technology a lot of the time,” continued Benson.

Next, they touched on at-home care and its role in facilitating LTC pharmacies; and it’s the partnership between Lewis Drug and The Compliance Team that can accommodate this specific type of care. Benson touched on medication adherence and Lewis Drug’s mail-in program that allows at-home patients to quickly and seamlessly receive their medications and comply with clinicians’ preferred instructions.

“Here at Lewis Drug, we have a heavy at-home hospice service. It’s ensuring that these patients have any sort of medications that they need at their disposal when they need them. And that is a 24-hour service that we offer,” said Benson.

Finally, Canally discussed The Compliance Team’s accreditation process and how it’s helped Benson’s pharmacies strive for gold-standard services.

“Lewis Drug chose to get accredited because it holds all of our locations at a same standard,” continued Benson. “It creates consistency across all of our locations. It’s also super beneficial that it’s a third-party validation. It’s unbiased in any sort of way. It just ensures that we’re all held to an elite standard.”

The accreditation process has allowed companies like Lewis Drug to go above and beyond when it comes to providing all types of patient care, not just LTC or at-home care. Canally then elaborated on how accreditation is especially beneficial for LTC pharmacies.

“The fact that your quality has been validated by a third party, puts you at the top of the list with getting [contracts from outside facilities],” she said. “Maintaining that high level of standard, with The Compliance Team, it’s at that exemplary level because our accreditation is all about Lewis Drug being an exemplary provider. Every patient deserves exemplary care.”

Listen to the full episode for the full scope of how The Compliance Team has given companies like Lewis Drug the opportunity to provide the most sought-after services in the pharmacy industry today.

Drug Topics sat down with Sandra Canally, RN, founder and CEO of The Compliance Team, and Kara Benson, PharmD, long-term care director of Lewis Drug Inc, to discuss the future of LTC pharmacy.

Is LTC Pharmacy Going Back to the Future?

: All right, Kristen, let's do this thing. How do I make money on A1C testing? And what what does it all look like? And by the way, Kristin is under the weather, and she's championing through it like Michael Jordan did when he got sick in the playoffs, so I'm excited.


: Yeah, I'm digging deep, but I have good information to share today. So I'm so glad you asked Kevin about profitability and A1C testing. So I have some numbers in front of me, if I'm looking to the side a little bit, it's because I'm looking at my numbers. But when you're doing an A1C test, again, reminder, because I'm always getting this question "Oh, wait, we're not setting to the lab?" No, we're talking about doing the test, with the person standing right in front of you, a simple finger prick. And you'll have your results typically in less than 15 minutes or so. And so what do we charge? A lot of people want to know, what do we even charge for that? Well, typically anywhere between 30 and $45. Let's err on the lower end, let's call it 30, you'll probably be making about $20 margin per test. And so I just want to kind of like, what do you think Kevin? Can I just like crunch through some different scenarios? If we were going to do X number of tests? Let's do it. So before I even get into the crunching of like, what does 30 tests look like? What does, you know, a year worth of tests look like? I want to emphasize the point that you as the pharmacist, you as the owner of your business, you are not doing these tests, you are making money doing something else while someone else is doing these tests. So that's the first thing is that we're utilizing the staff that we have to perform these services. That's the number one thing to keep in mind. Number two, is the whole process of doing an A1C test from start to finish, like communicating with the patient, booking the appointment, doing the test, delivering the results, and then maybe pitching them on other services, is going to take 10 minutes of time, like start to finish 10 minutes of time, if you use an online booking system, then that's even less because you don't have you know, Mrs. Jones on the phone that you're trying to get all of her information from and so on and so forth. So these numbers are based on 10 minutes of time that your other staff members are doing. And so if we were going to do 30 tests- the other thing before we get into that- is, I would pick your target market. Who is your target market? Because we can't target everybody at one time? It's impossible. You can't train your staff to communicate with everybody at one time. There's a bunch of different barriers to that. So pick one target market, are we just going to focus on patients who get Metformin from us? Beautiful. Okay. So how much Metformin do you dispense? Or how many patients are you talking to you as a consultant pharmacist who has diabetes, it could just be diabetes. I'm talking to anybody who has diabetes who doesn't want to be on medication. So then we look at the numbers. Like I said, if we said if we were on the low end and you did 30 tests a month, that's one test a day. Can we find one diabetic per day to come in and spend 10 minutes with them? That would equate to about $600 of profit per month. And just one test per day that you're not doing that takes less than 10 minutes. And then per year on that low end, it's over $7,000 of profit. And that doesn't factor in any other testing services that we're doing. It doesn't factor in any supplements that we're selling them. It doesn't factor in any consultation services that we're selling them. Everybody has this different perception of of money, right, Kevin? Like, some people are like "$600 a month, what can I do with that? I could hire another person, I could, you know, whatever." Other people are like "600 dollars, that's really not that much money." But to that person, I just want to say, if you start to look at this as the foundational piece that you're going to then talk to them about another service, what does that end up looking like? Like, are you able to sell another supplement that's going to give you another 10 or $20 per supplement? Like that, that's pretty easy. Like, it's just that easy. And so on the higher end, it could be $1,000 extra a month, if you were going to sell them at $45 per test or over 12,000 extra dollars per year, if you are going to sell at that higher end, and that's margin, that's after your actual test costs.


: Kristin, put me back in my store that I had when I was over in Brewster and had an employee only retail pharmacy. So I'm sitting there, I've got my patients in front of me, I've got my entire list, I just pulled out and ripped out some spreadsheets that show me like "Here, all my Metformin patients, here all my insulin patients, etc," right? But I've got all of my diabetics in front of me as my entire list. When I'm analyzing this list, and now you're telling me that if we can do one test a day, so that that means that one test a day, we would need to with A1C frequencies, be that one individual, how many times am I testing that one individual per year, in your mind? You and I know, here's what the schedule is, here's the number of months that you can look at, here's the ideal scenario of every three months you can get rechecked. But how often am I actually retesting those individuals? And how many people does that mean for me to fulfill that for an entire year?


: I'm saying non-controlled every three months. But in my mind, a non-controlled diabetic is somebody who's over like 5%, or you can even say maybe 6%. But really, if you dive into the studies, the lower we get that A1C obviously, we don't want to make them hypoglycemic or anything but the closer to five, that we get that A1C, it really is extremely beneficial for patients, for 1,000,001 different reasons that we could probably talk about a different time, but every three months, and the likelihood of that person on Metformin, being controlled, I think is pretty slim, because how often are they actually able to see their doctor? I don't know if I said on last week's session, but the average person gets to spend seven minutes with their PCP. Seven minutes, they don't have time to talk about what your A1C number should be, patients don't know what they are even shooting for. They're just trusting that their doctor is suggesting the solution to their problem, when really, there's so much more to it. And also, I don't think that that a lot of patients realize that it can be reversed in a lot of different ways.


: Yeah. So I mean, we were really looking at multiple times a year. So not just one test kind of deal, we're looking at two, three, maybe even four times a year, you can test a single individual. So your patient population, you know, the the note that Kevin was trying to lead toward is you don't have to literally have one person, a different patient every single day, like you're dividing that list by two, three, or maybe even four, you know, and you can fill that whole kind of population set out and develop that relationship. So that makes tons of sense. The other thing I want to plug in there for you, Kristin, cuz you've gotten to profitability and like what people think of money one way or the other. The one thing you've educated me on that I love is let's look at margins. Like you can spend 10 or 15 minutes of your staff doing this and make a margin of 20% or less. Or you could have them do A1C testing, add on additional services for margins that are closer to...


: I mean, $20 per test, but if you're going to do six tests in an hour, that's $120 that that that staff member just made you.


: Which you're purchasing for even less than that. So you're making almost 100% margin, you know.


: Oh, yeah, you're making you're making 200%, if not more, margin.


: There you go. I mean, I think there's the simple math to be able to say like, okay, that's 600 bucks, but think of what else you could have been doing with your time making much less for the investment which I love that you pointed out several times


: So, listen, I know we're running up on on time here, the big takeaway is really break down your list of like all the patients that you have be able to say like, "If I just did one one test today and start really simple" here's the math that you can be able to walk through, you can look at the $600 per month, $7,000 per year you're getting out of it. Also look at the margins that are there. And then your mind can start working it, how can I leverage the additional services, I can sell? Any other profitability like nuggets, you want to make sure that we plug into this one?

 Well, that that's just the beginning really is that's literally just, I'm just showing you what doing a simple fingerprick of one type of test can do for your business once a day. So what would it look like if you had an A one C come in, and a COVID, flu, RSV, and strep and like you became known as this place where people can come to get tested. And then we're not even talking about functional tests, like hormone panels and stool tests and food sensitivity panels and pharmacogenomics. Like what if you became known as the testing place? Because what I see when I'm working with my actual patients for functional medicine, is that they want stuff tested, and their doctors are telling them no, I can't do that. And I don't think it's any thing negative regarding the doctor, it's the health care system and how we're set up. They have to have a diagnosis code, they have to have a legitimate reason for ordering these different tests, so that the insurance company actually pays for it. Otherwise, the patient is paying out of pocket and just astronomical prices. And so anyway, that's my big vision is like how can we just turn into this like pharmacy health and wellness testing hub, if that's what you want to do, but testing just goes so beautifully with what we're already doing in pharmacy?

 Yeah, I mean, starting with A1C, the great kind of like tip of the iceberg, I think, get people involved and understand the profitability just from one test and how they can move the needle overall. But you mentioned something that I think is really worth repeating on, the system will only allow for you to be able to bill insurance X number of times with X number of diagnoses in place for them to get a lab test paid for, right? But a lot of times in the hospital setting, I always wish I had a baseline I wish I had a number to be able to reference that someone has not gotten labs drawn for 100 years, like literally someone is coming into the hospital never having labs done. And it's like, cool, where do we start from here? The great thing that you can be as a community pharmacy is you can be the source, you know, for a lot of those testing, you know, thoughts to go in. And that can be part of someone's medical record that they can benefit from later on, if anything were to happen. So, super helpful. I think the profitability is both in the investment into your community and the investment back into your store with just the overall margins that we're talking about. Because let's not kid ourselves margin for drugs, lots of drugs are not going in the right direction, you know, overall, or the other ones have stagnated that inflation is now bringing them down. And so trying to find highly profitable things like A1C that you're getting 100 to 200% margin on, no brainer.

: Yeah, absolutely. And again, just to emphasize one more time, it's literally the tip of the iceberg. They this overflows it turns into this huge snowball effect. Let's get our processes and and policies in place, and our workflow how are we actually going to do this, what are the conversations going to look like? How are we going to get paid? What are we going to charge? Do that for one test, and then it just explodes if you stick with it and be consistent.


: Love it. Love it, Kristin. If anybody wants to learn more about point of care testing and lab services, you know where to come, head over to RPhAlly, jump on Kristin's channel and become a member with her. Get your questions answered there, join what Kristin is doing. If you're somebody out there and you're saying $600 isn't a lot of money and I don't want to take that fantastic you just send it over to Kristin and I will be able to help you get a program up and running and we'll basically run it for you. So just let us know how you want us to do that. Anyway all jesting aside, you guys have a wonderful rest of the day and we'll be talking to you soon.


Welcome back to RPHCast! This week, our hosts dive into the profitability of A1C testing, and how quick and easy these tests can help maximize your pharmacy's capabilities. 

RPhCast, Episode Two: The A1C Possibility

Early planning and strong partnerships enable community pharmacies to manage the surge in vaccines and treatments during flu, COVID-19, and RSV seasons.

Q&A: Preparing Community Pharmacies for Respiratory Disease Season

Addressing harassment, strengthening leadership, and involving frontline pharmacy staff in decision-making are key steps toward a healthier, more supportive work environment.

Q&A: Improving Pharmacy Staff Well-Being Through Supervisor Support, Workplace Culture

A conversation with Erin Albert, MBA, PharmD, JD, DASPL, chief of pharmacy relations, network and privacy, at Cost Plus Drugs.

Mark Cuban Cost Plus Drugs Affiliate Pharmacy Network Aims to Support Independent Pharmacies

Douglas Hoey, CEO of NCPA, discusses what pharmacies can do to increase revenue and avoid shutting their doors.

Q&A: As Closures Mount, Independent Pharmacies Must Diversify Services

Mark Garofoli, PharmD, MBA, BCGP, CPE, CTTS, discusses effective strategies for balancing excellent patient care with strict regulations surrounding controlled substances.

Q&A: Balancing Patient Care, Compliance Amid Controlled Substance Challenges | AAP 2025

At AAP 2025, Greg Mitchell, owner of United Drug Superstore, discussed how retail pharmacies can leverage vaccine services to build long-term patient relationships.

Importance of Vaccination in Independent Pharmacy Profitability | AAP 2025

During the COVID-19 pandemic, pharmacists administered vaccines at a higher rate than other healthcare professionals.

 Under the Federal Retail Pharmacy Program, pharmacists administered over 300 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines to patients. Research has also shown that when pharmacists administer vaccines, it has a positive impact on uptake and patient satisfaction.

For Greg Mitchell, owner of United Drug Superstore in Hatch, New Mexico, getting into vaccinations during the public health crisis turned out to be a game-changer. By the end of 2020, his pharmacy administered over 5,800 vaccines, which had a positive impact on his store’s profitability. Vaccines now make up about 5% of his business and account for 10% of his total gross margin.

GLP-1s Present Profitability Challenges to Independent Pharmacies | AAP 2025

At the American Associated Pharmacies (AAP) Annual Conference, held April 10 to 12 in Austin, Texas, 

sat down with Mitchell to discuss how important vaccine administration is to a pharmacy’s overall profitability, what strategies pharmacists can use to maximize vaccine uptake and patient engagement, and how retail pharmacies can leverage vaccine services to build long-term patient relationships.

“[My pharmacy] is in a rural area, and when we started off doing the COVID-19 vaccines, we actually did more vaccines in our small, rural pharmacy in Hatch, New Mexico than any other pharmacy in our county,” Mitchell said. “Our county includes the second most populous city in the state, with multiple Walgreens, multiple CVS, multiple Walmarts, every chain pharmacy you could think of. We did a great job on it, and a lot of the patients were so happy that we've made patients out of them. They've come 40 miles to our pharmacy from the city, where there's plenty of pharmacies to choose from. They've decided to come back and do business with us. Just do a good job and people will stay with you.”

Be sure to keep up with all of our coverage from AAP 2025 here.

1. Carroll JC, Herbert SMC, Nguyen TQ, et al. Vaccination equity and the role of community pharmacy in the United States: A qualitative study. 

. 2024 Jan 25;42(3):564-572. doi: 10.1016/j.vaccine.2023.12.063. Epub 2024 Jan 9. PMID: 38195264.

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