36 Facts About Walgreens

Walgreens was found by a federal jury to have "substantially contributed to" the opioid crisis.

Walgreens began in 1901, with a small food front store on the corner of Bowen and Cottage Grove Avenues in Chicago, owned by Dixon, Illinois native Charles R Walgreen.

Walgreens had expanded by then into Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin.

In 1946, Walgreens purchased Sanborns, one of the largest pharmacy and department store chains in Mexico, from Frank Sanborn.

Walgreens created larger-sized Walgreens Superstores and purchased the Globe Discount City chain of big-box stores from United Mercantile, Inc in the 1960s The Walgreen family was not involved in senior management of the company for a short time following Walgreen III's retirement.

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On July 12, 2006, David Bernauer stepped down as CEO of Walgreens and was replaced by company president Jeff Rein, who was later named chief executive officer and chairman of the board.

That year, Walgreens acquired the Happy Harry's chain in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey.

In 2010, Walgreens acquired New York City-area chain Duane Reade for $1.

In 2011 Walgreens announced it would end its relationship with Express Scripts, a prescription benefits manager.

In 2012, Walgreens announced that it would continue to participate in Express Scripts.

In February 2020, Walgreens announced the appointment of Richard Ashworth as president of the company, but he left within the year.

Walgreens has had a technology office located in Chicago since 2010.

In November 2010 Walgreens filed a trademark infringement lawsuit against the Wegmans supermarket chain, claiming the "W" in the Wegman's logo is too similar to Walgreens'.

In March 2008, Walgreens settled a lawsuit with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that alleged the company discriminated against African Americans for $24 million.

In September 2011, Walgreens settled a lawsuit with the EEOC that claimed that a store improperly terminated a worker with diabetes for eating a package of the store's food while working to stop a hypoglycemia attack.

In June 2008, after Walgreens was sued for drug fraud—"switching dosage forms on three medications without doctor approvals in order to boost profits"—Walgreens agreed to stop these actions and pay $35 million to the federal government, 42 states, and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, " as reported by the Knoxville News Sentinel.

Also in June 2008, Walgreens "agreed to pay $35 million to the U S and 42 states and Puerto Rico for overcharging state Medicaid programs by filling prescriptions with more expensive dosage forms of ranitidine, a generic form of Zantac, and fluoxetine, a generic form of Prozac.

In 2009 Walgreens threatened to leave the Medicaid program, the state and federal partnership to provide health insurance coverage to the poor, in Delaware over reimbursement rates.

Walgreens was the largest pharmacy chain in the state and the only chain to make such a threat.

The state of Delaware and Walgreens reached an agreement on payment rates and the crisis was averted.

In 2010 Walgreens stopped accepting Medicaid in Washington state, leaving its one million Medicaid recipients unable to get their prescriptions filled at these 121 stores.

Walgreens was named in a lawsuit by the United Food and Commercial Workers Unions and Employers Midwest Health Benefits Fund in the Northern District Court of Illinois in January 2012.

The DEA said that Walgreens failed to maintain proper controls to ensure it didn't dispense drugs to addicts and drug dealers.

One Walgreens pharmacy located in Fort Myers, Florida, ordered 95, 800 pills in 2009, but by 2011, this number had jumped to 2.

In 2013 United States Attorney Wifredo Ferrer said Walgreens committed "an unprecedented number" of recordkeeping and dispensing violations.

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Walgreens was fined $80 million, the largest fine in the history of the Controlled Substances Act at that time.

Walgreens did not admit to wrongdoing as part of the settlement.

New York State Attorney General announced in April 2016 that a settlement was reached in the complaint that Walgreens used misleading advertising and overcharged consumers.

Walgreens would pay $500, 000 in penalties, fees and costs, and change advertising and other practices.

Judge in Kansas City, Missouri, ordered Walgreens to pay a $309, 000 fine for pricing discrepancies in 2015.

The suit alleged that Walgreens violated state law by charging more than the lowest posted or advertised price for items.

Walgreens responded that its policy "allows pharmacists to step away from filling a prescription for which they have a moral objection".

When it was asked by the California Board of Pharmacy during the investigation, Walgreens was unable to furnish a copy of her employment application.

Walgreens was accused of wage theft and labor law violations of its employees in California between 2010 and 2017, including that Walgreens "rounded down employees' hours on their timecards, required employees to pass through security checks before and after their shift without compensating them for time worked, and failed to pay premium wages to employees who were denied legally required meal breaks.

Walgreens refused to comment on the case when requested by news media.

The lawsuit claims that Walgreens willfully flooded the market with an oversupply of prescription narcotics in violation of public nuisance and consumer protection laws.