Ceremony Support has offered the pharmacy providers of greater than 1,000 places throughout the nation to competing chains — together with longtime archrivals CVS and Walgreens.
Along with the No. 1 and No. 1 drugstore chains, rivals together with Albertsons, Kroger and Big Eagle snapped up a number of places from the struggling drugstore chain, which earlier this month filed for chapter for the second time in two years.
“These agreements ensure our pharmacy customers will experience a smooth transition while preserving jobs for some of our valued team members,” Ceremony Support CEO Matt Schroeder stated in a press release on Thursday.
CVS got here away with the most important variety of acquisitions, set to take over 625 Ceremony Support pharmacies throughout 15 states, in addition to 64 Ceremony Support shops in Idaho, Oregon and Washington.
The offers await approval from the US Chapter Courtroom for the District of New Jersey.
Within the meantime, Ceremony Support stated its shops and pharmacy providers will stay open, so clients can proceed selecting up their prescription refills and scheduling vaccines.
The Pennsylvania-based chain’s chapter submitting earlier this month got here lower than a 12 months after it exited its earlier Chapter 11 course of, rising as a personal firm.
Ceremony Support first filed for chapter in October 2023.
Like many different pharmacies, it fell sufferer to shifts in shopper habits, with extra clients refilling their prescriptions on-line and skipping the additional purchases made all through the remainder of the drug retailer.
Drugstores have additionally complained that their prescription companies have grown much less worthwhile as pharmacy profit managers lower reimbursement charges.
PBMs have argued that they assist hold drug costs down.
Ceremony Support additionally noticed its debt bounce to almost $4 billion following authorized challenges and a multi-million greenback settlement with the US authorities over claims its pharmacies stuffed pointless prescriptions for addictive opioids.
The corporate has about 1,240 shops remaining throughout the nation – nearly half what it operated two years in the past, and it’s set to shutter almost 10% of those remaining places as a part of the chapter course of.
It has instructed staff it’ll lower jobs after failing to safe extra financing from lenders, Bloomberg reported earlier this month.
