DEERFIELD, Ill. & SOUTH SAN FRANCISCO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (Nasdaq: WBA) and Verily, an Alphabet company, today announced they will collaborate on multiple projects under a broad agreement aimed at improving health outcomes for patients with chronic conditions, while also lowering the cost of care. Walgreens will be a first-choice retail pharmacy development and commercialization partner to Verily, and the organizations have agreed to work on and explore ways to improve access to advanced healthcare technologies and solutions – which may include sensors and software to help prevent, manage, screen and diagnose disease – with a shared goal of scaling deployment at Walgreens retail locations.
Initially, the companies are developing a medication adherence pilot project that will deploy devices and other approaches designed to improve adherence. Walgreens together with Onduo, Verily’s joint venture with Sanofi, will also launch a virtual diabetes solution to Walgreens employees and family members with Type 2 diabetes through the Walgreens employee health plan. Onduo provides tools, coaching and remote access to specialty doctors to help people with diabetes to manage their condition anytime, anywhere. These initiatives are part of a broader strategic alliance designed to combine Verily’s healthcare technology innovation with Walgreens corner store presence and trusted pharmacy services.
“We’re focused on finding innovative ways to deliver better patient care at lower costs, and working with the right healthcare partners to help bring new services and solutions to our patients and customers,” said Stefano Pessina, chief executive officer, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. “The continued rise in chronic diseases today can be costly to patients as well as to our healthcare system. Working with Verily, we’ll look at how we can best support integrated and value-based care to meet our patients’ needs, as well as opportunities to address other chronic conditions over time.”
“We are well aligned with Walgreens on the need to develop and bring to market solutions that help people better engage with their health and manage their chronic conditions. This relationship affords us the opportunity to jointly tackle real-world issues that significantly impact the health of individuals and communities,” said Andrew Conrad, chief executive officer, Verily. “Medication adherence, which represents one of the most significant and costly barriers to improving patient outcomes, is an area that I am most excited to work on with a partner like Walgreens.”
About Walgreens Boots Alliance
Walgreens Boots Alliance (Nasdaq: WBA) is the first global pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing enterprise. The company's heritage of trusted health care services through community pharmacy care and pharmaceutical wholesaling dates back more than 100 years.
Walgreens Boots Alliance is the largest retail pharmacy, health and daily living destination across the U.S. and Europe. Walgreens Boots Alliance and the companies in which it has equity method investments together have a presence in more than 25 countries and employ more than 415,000 people. The company is a global leader in pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing retail and, together with its equity method investments, has more than 18,500 stores in 11 countries as well as one of the largest global pharmaceutical wholesale and distribution networks, with more than 390 distribution centers delivering to more than 230,000 pharmacies, doctors, health centers and hospitals each year in more than 20 countries. In addition, Walgreens Boots Alliance is one of the world’s largest purchasers of prescription drugs and many other health and wellbeing products.
The company’s portfolio of retail and business brands includes Walgreens, Duane Reade, Boots and Alliance Healthcare, as well as increasingly global health and beauty product brands, such as No7, Soap & Glory, Liz Earle, Sleek MakeUP and Botanics. Walgreens Boots Alliance is proud to be a force for good, leveraging many decades of experience and its international scale, to care for people and the planet through numerous social responsibility and sustainability initiatives that have an impact on the health and wellbeing of millions of people.
More company information is available at www.walgreensbootsalliance.com.
(WBA-GEN)
About Verily
Launched in 2015, Verily is a subsidiary of Alphabet focused on life sciences and healthcare. Verily’s mission is to make the world’s health data useful so that people enjoy healthier lives. Verily develops tools and devices to collect, organize and activate health data, and creates interventions to prevent and manage disease. Verily partners with leading life sciences, medical device and government organizations, using deep hardware, software, scientific, and healthcare expertise to enable faster development, meaningful advances, and deployment at scale. For more information, please visit www.verily.com.
Cautionary Note Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
All statements in this release that are not historical are forward-looking statements made pursuant to the safe harbor provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are not guarantees of future performance and involve risks, assumptions and uncertainties, including, but not limited to, those related to the timing and effectiveness of collaboration plans, the ability to realize the anticipated benefits of the collaboration, competitive actions in the marketplace, and the ability to achieve anticipated financial and operating results in the amounts and at the times anticipated, as well as those described in Item 1A (Risk Factors) of Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc.’s Form 10-K for its fiscal year ending August 31, 2018 and subsequent documents that Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. files or furnishes with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Should one or more of these risks or uncertainties materialize, or should underlying assumptions prove incorrect, actual results may vary materially. These forward-looking statements speak only as of the date they are made. Except to the extent required by law, Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. does not undertake, and expressly disclaims, any duty or obligation to update publicly any forward-looking statement after the date of this release, whether as a result of new information, future events, changes in assumptions or otherwise.
