In this Issue

Expanding the role of pharmacy far beyond the counter has long been a hallmark of Kerr Drug’s business model, and the chain’s Kerr Community Health Center is one of the best examples. 


Comparison shopping across blood-glucose meters couldn’t be easier than at Walgreens. Pictured here at a store just outside of Baltimore, customers can hold and feel the individual monitors and review individual bullet points as part of this pull-box display. Located just outside the pharmacy waiting area, the display also is ideal for quick and easy pharmacist recommendations. 


Perhaps concerned that customers might shift their prescriptions after its acquisition, Duane Reade is reminding shoppers that far from reducing services, ownership by Walgreens means expanded services. 


Thanks to this poster at a Duane Reade store at the corner of Park Avenue and 56th Street in New York, customers know that they can pick up their prescriptions at any of Walgreens’ more than 7,000 stores in all 
50 states.


As of this past fall, many retailers began facing their condom displays upright as part of a supplier-driven efficiency program that will end up creating additional shelf space. On average, three vertical condom packages will occupy the same space once taken by only two horizontal condom packages. That means last year, only four packages would have fit in this shelf shot, taken at CVS. 


NEW YORK — Within the next three months, a gallon of gas is expected to exceed $4.11, which previously marked the highest historical U.S. retail price set in July 2008. Prior to that, the highest that gas prices had ever been was $3.46 in March 1981. 


CVS/pharmacy is taking its focus on preventive care to the streets with its 2011 To Your Health program, staging more than 800 events around the country and screening patients for diabetes, blood pressure, cholesterol, bone density and vision. Each To Your Health event offers customers access to as much as $150 worth of health screenings, as well as medical reviews with CVS pharmacists; consultations with doctors; dental and chiropractic screenings; and referrals for mammograms and pap smears in certain locations.


Beauty360 has been described as “a natural evolution” of CVS/pharmacy’s commitment to beauty, and there’s no denying that it is much different than any beauty department you’ll find in a traditional CVS/pharmacy store. As of press time, there were 25 Beauty360 stores in operation, located primarily in California. The first location was unveiled November 2008 at a Capitol district CVS store in the center of Dupont Circle.


Counterfeit drugs are a problem that won’t go away. In a recent segment on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Sanjay Gupta explored the dark underworld of drug counterfeiting. While covering the bust of a counterfeiting operation in Lima, Peru, Gupta ­— himself a doctor — said he couldn’t tell the drugs were fake. But luckily, several technologies have been developed in recent years that allow quick detection of counterfeits. One company developing such a technology is Mobile Data Systems.