Walgreens' clinical trials unit is shaping up to play a critical role in the retail pharmacy's transformation strategy.
This past year has been recovery mode for Walgreens, and more changes are coming. The company plans to shutter hundreds more of its drugstores over the next few years, in addition to rethinking its healthcare services portfolio, which includes primary and urgent care, specialty pharmacy and home care services.
Related: Here's who might buy Walgreens' VillageMD majority stake
The clinical trials unit launched in mid-2022 under former CEO Roz Brewer, who also led Walgreens' move into healthcare services. As of August, the clinical trials unit works with more than 25 biopharmaceutical companies, academic institutions, nonprofits and government partners to conduct clinical trials ranging from an investigational drug for seizures to a blood test to detect colorectal cancer.
Last week, Walgreens announced a five-year partnership valued at up to $100 million with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority using Walgreens' infrastructure to invest in decentralized clinical research, where patients participate remotely.
In an interview, Ramita Tandon, chief clinical trials officer at Walgreens, said the company's clinical trials unit has big plans to reach more patients and will remain a key part of the company's healthcare strategy. The interview was edited for length and clarity.
Will clinical trials be part of Walgreens' turnaround?
It is part of the DNA of how we operationalize services, beyond just the traditional retail services, pharmacy services. There's a tremendous amount of commitment all the way from the board and [CEO Tim Wentworth]. You've heard Tim talk quite extensively about clinical trials. What it represents is a capital-light model that leverages the physical footprint, the assets, the trust, the engagement with our consumers.
What's the value in clinical trials for Walgreens as a business?
There is obviously a contractual component to our engagement models with our industry partners, so certainly this is a revenue stream within the healthcare segment of Walgreens. It also drives additional [people] into our stores and our pharmacies … that are asking the question, “I just heard about this clinical trial. Can you talk to me more about it?” Those conversations are happening on a regular basis.
What is Walgreens' focus for clinical trials?
When we built out the enterprise and launched in June 2022, it was really centered around two key focus areas for us. Number one, tackling the issues around lack of representation. Less than 5% of this nation participates in clinical research, and [of] those that do participate, 75% are white, which means the lion's share of this nation have not even had a chance to be part of clinical research.
And two, accessibility. Traditionally, and to some extent today, the medical research enterprise has been set up to support urban, affluent white neighborhoods because that's where a lot of the academic medical centers are. … [We] use our physical infrastructure because it's convenient. Seventy-eight percent of our populations are within five miles of a Walgreens.
To be able to solve complex [healthcare] issues, it really requires out-of-box thinking of how to show up to the communities differently than what people have done historically. That's what Walgreens is doing, and that's what we're doing with clinical trials, so it is part of the broader strategy as we move forward.
What makes Walgreens’ approach to clinical trials different from others?
I would say, first and foremost, the commitment. When some of our colleagues [at other companies] decided to move away, we've come out quite strong, saying we're doubling down because that’s the right thing to do.
I have very strong leadership that comes from the clinical trial space. Some people have been there for more than 25 years, like myself and others. We really built an enterprise with folks that have the experience and expertise to be able to take what's happened in the industry, understand some of those challenges, take a look at the assets we have and implement that model into this organization.
I think the BARDA relationship is a testament to the investments that we've made at Walgreens to make sure [the clinical trials program] is based on a highly compliant, regulatory-aligned enterprise to really execute and deliver against the work that our partners ask us to do.
Is the strategy affected by recent changes to the store footprint?
We work very closely with our internal teams, our corporate real estate teams and everybody to make sure that we're identifying the right markets. When we work with industry partners, the government entities, we're very mindful of where they want to go because oftentimes they have specific markets in mind. We look at the demographics, we look at what that patient community looks like, and make sure we're selecting the right centers before we even move ahead.
How do you market clinical trials to customers?
We email, we text, we sometimes snail mail, and [use the] call center. It's dependent upon the trial, the disease condition and what sponsors are comfortable with. As we start to get into communities — particularly socially vulnerable communities — that requires a bit more effort. That requires our local teams to start spending time to educate folks, get them comfortable, so when they do get a message from Walgreens, there’s a level of familiarity.
We do use in-store tactics. You'll sometimes see kiosks with brochures and flyers. When people pick up their [prescriptions] from the pharmacist, if we're running clinical trials, it'll get flagged to the pharmacist that that patient could be eligible. We do put information in the [prescription] bag, and there's also a QR code that patients can go home with to learn more about the trials.
What goals do you have for the clinical trials unit in the next three to five years?
For us as a business, it's around really tackling those two [questions] — Can we move the needle on the lack of representation? Can we start to see more diverse patient populations participating? As we think about accessibility, we've got [goals] around how many patients are we driving from our communities into our stores, coming in to be able to have clinical trial services? My goal is that … [we] really stay on the forefront of the role that pharmacy plays in medical research, and more importantly, part of the healthcare ecosystem that we're operating in.
