Rite Aid takes a bite out of obesity; relaunches weight-loss program for New Year

NEW YORK The Rite Aid weight-loss program is probably one of the better examples of how to tie in just about every component of a modern-day drug store — pharmacy, front-end (in this case, over the counter) and in-store clinics — with the extensive health knowledge of both the pharmacist behind the bench and the practitioner at the clinic.

One of the factors that helps distinguish Rite Aid’s health-and-wellness programs is the chain’s pursuit of partnering with leading healthcare associations. For example, Rite Aid partners with the American Diabetes Association on developing consumer education on diabetes; on skin care, it’s The Skin Care Foundation; here it’s one of the leading weight-loss clinics Lindora, and now Harvard Medical School.

Bringing those kinds of partners on board to any health initiative not only lends creditability to the overall project, but also helps to establish pharmacy as one of the key distribution points of all things health related.