HOPE – CVS has reportedly bought out Hope’s only pharmacy, with Hope Wellness Pharmacy’s last day set for today.
The pharmacy at 645 Harrison St. is closing today, 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.
But 2019 was also the year that Hope Wellness began using a telepharmacy format that connected customers in Hope with pharmacists in Bloomington. That meant fewer licensed pharmacists were required to be physically in Hope, which helped smooth over the financial challenges, Jarrigan said.
In May 2020, the Hope Wellness Pharmacy was doing well enough to start providing both in-town and out-of-town deliveries throughout Bartholomew County.
Burris said the closing had nothing to do with customer support.
"The citizens of Hope did their part," Burris said. "It’s just that insurance reimbursements aren’t so great these days."
The community had gone about 30 years without its own pharmacy when the upcoming opening of Hope Wellness was announced during a “State of the Town” address in December 2016.
For most of the 20th century, there was at least one, if not two, drug stores operating in the Hope area. But prior to Hope Wellness, the last drug store was Mills Pharmacy, which was located next to the former Clouse’s Supermarket on the north side of the square until at least 1987.
Both the drug store and the supermarket were two of several “mom and pop” operations that closed during the economic downturn in the late ’80s.
The need for a pharmacy was specifically mentioned in the comprehensive plan developed for the town of Hope in 2006. That same year, Community Center of Hope founding director Julie Glick Begin said the town needs to make acquiring its own pharmacy a top priority.
At that time, about 10 percent of the Hope’s population is age 65 or older, with many homebound due to disability. Statistics also showed a large number of the town’s residents had trouble finding transportation to larger communities with pharmacies, town officials said.
