HOPE – CVS has reportedly bought out Hope’s only pharmacy, with Hope Wellness Pharmacy’s last day set for Friday.
The pharmacy at 645 Harrison St. is closing, said co-owner Lester Burris.
When it opened in January 2017, the pharmacy in a former Hope bank building became the third drug store operated by Panacea Pharmacy, Inc. of Bloomington. Burris says the sale also includes his company’s Bloomington facility.
The four-and-a-half years that Hope Wellness operated was marked by ups and downs. In 2019, pharmacist Tim Jarrigan informed the town council that his business was struggling to stay afloat. One significant problem he described was that “independents don’t have the purchasing power of large pharmacy chains.”
The 57-year-old CVS chain, headquartered in Lowell, Massachusetts, has near 10,000 outlets in the United States, according to its website.
For more on this story, see Friday’s Republic.
