Walgreens Boots Alliance Makes a Majority Investment into iA to Advance Automation Capabilities for the Pharmacy Industry
January 12 2021 - 6:00PM
Business Wire
Investment Represents an Important Step to
Enable Pharmacists to Expand Their Role in Patient Care and Enhance
Pharmacy Productivity
Walgreens Boots Alliance (Nasdaq: WBA) and iA today announced
that WBA has made a majority investment in iA, a leading-edge
provider of software enabled automation solutions for retail,
hospital, federal healthcare and mail-order pharmacy markets. WBA’s
investment will support iA’s expansion and further development of
pharmacy automation solutions to benefit the entire pharmacy
industry.
For millions of Americans, the pharmacist is an essential
partner in ensuring their health and quality of life. The COVID-19
pandemic has created an even greater sense of urgency for patients
and customers to have direct access to pharmacists to receive
trusted care and advice in order to take care of their families.
iA’s pharmacy automation solutions enable the shifting of much of
the current medication dispensing labor that takes place in a
retail pharmacy to more efficient, centralized settings, therefore
freeing up more time for pharmacists to deliver front-line patient
care.
“The role of pharmacists as an integral part of the healthcare
system and patients’ care teams has never been more critical,” said
Stefano Pessina, executive vice chairman and CEO, Walgreens Boots
Alliance. “The iA mission to further modernize and automate the
prescription fulfillment process aligns with our priority to create
the pharmacy of the future, reducing operational costs and enabling
pharmacists to spend more time providing valuable healthcare
services to patients such as vaccinations, diagnostic testing and
medication management.”
“iA is passionately committed to working across all of pharmacy
to ensure that all of our current customers, and any pharmacy
across the country, has an opportunity to realize the optimum use
and expansion of our software enabled pharmacy automation
solutions,” said Marvin Richardson, CEO of iA. “Over the past year,
we have seen an unprecedented demand for our solutions in order to
move pharmacists’ non-patient facing work out of a store
environment, allowing pharmacy providers of any size and any
location to take advantage of the accuracy and efficacy of today’s
pharmacy automation solutions while providing improved patient
choice and impactful patient care. Together with WBA, we will work
to unleash the full potential of pharmacy.”
Notes to Editors:
About Walgreens Boots Alliance
Walgreens Boots Alliance (Nasdaq: WBA) is a global leader in
retail and wholesale pharmacy, touching millions of lives every day
through dispensing and distributing medicines, and through its
convenient retail locations, digital platforms and health and
beauty products. The company has more than 100 years of trusted
healthcare heritage and innovation in community pharmacy and
pharmaceutical wholesaling.
Including equity method investments, WBA has a presence in more
than 25 countries, employs more than 450,000 people and has more
than 21,000 stores.
WBA’s purpose is to help people across the world lead healthier
and happier lives. The company is proud of its contributions to
healthy communities, a healthy planet, an inclusive workplace and a
sustainable marketplace. WBA is a Participant of the United Nations
Global Compact and adheres to its principles-based approach to
responsible business.
WBA is included in FORTUNE’s 2020 list of the World’s Most
Admired Companies*, ranked first in the food and drugstore
category. This is the 27th consecutive year that WBA or its
predecessor company, Walgreen Co., has been named to the list.
More company information is available at www.walgreensbootsalliance.com.
*© 2020, Fortune Media IP Limited. Used under license.
(WBA-GEN)
About iA
iA is a leading-edge provider of software enabled pharmacy
automation solutions. With over 25 years in the pharmacy
fulfillment business, iA has invented and developed a suite of
software driven pharmacy automation solutions. From PharmAssist
Symphony software, to modular hardware and sophisticated counting
and collation devices, iA is empowering pharmacists and unleashing
the full potential of pharmacy. iA can run the prescription
fulfillment process from end-to-end, helping pharmacies manage
fulfillment and inventory to help lower costs, improve efficiency,
and provide comprehensive Rx tracking and real-time support. For
high volume centralized fulfillment or pharmacy operations — iA can
help customers transform their pharmacy. For more information,
visit iARx.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 ability to
realize the anticipated benefits of the ownership stake investment
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,
2020, and in other 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. Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. and iA do
not undertake, and expressly disclaim, 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.
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Media Relations WBA: USA / Morry Smulevitz +1 847 315
0517 International +44 (0)20 7980 8585 iA: Lindsay Lingle
press@iarx.com WBA Investor Relations Gerald Gradwell and
Jay Spitzer +1 847 315 2922
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