Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA) announced yesterday that it had completed the $6.5bn (£4.6bn) sale of its Alliance Healthcare distribution business to US pharmaceuticals wholesaler AmerisourceBergen.
The deal was first announced in January with WBA saying at the time that the move would help it focus on improving the performance of its retail pharmacy operations, whilst providing funds to pay down debt and finance possible acquisitions.
The offer for Alliance Healthcare, previously called Alliance UniChem, came almost three years after a potential merger between WBA and AmerisourceBergen fell through. WBA is the largest shareholder in AmerisourceBergen with a stake of nearly 30%, and its Co-Chief Operating Officer Ornella Barra, is a Board Member.
The two companies already had a strategic partnership in place but as part of the deal, Walgreens and AmerisourceBergen have agreed to extend a US distribution agreement by three years to 2029. Alliance Healthcare UK will also remain a distribution partner for Boots until 2031. The groups have stated that the agreements would create incremental growth, synergies and efficiencies.
Julian Mount, Managing Director of Alliance Healthcare UK, said yesterday that he felt joining AmerisourceBergen was “a positive step forward” for the business.
He added that it would allow his company “the chance to expand, evolve and innovate on each other’s best-in-class expertise and capabilities across the pharmaceutical supply chain.
“Our combined experience from pre-commercial and clinical trial, to broad market availability and patient adherence, will allow us to build new services and solutions that further support healthcare advancements around the world and enable us to better support our NHS and ultimately the patients they serve.”
Welcoming the team of Alliance Healthcare, Steven Collins, CEO of AmerisourceBergen, commented: “This acquisition expands our reach and solutions in pharmaceutical distribution. It has added to the company’s breadth and depth of global manufacturer services.”
Meanwhile, WBA’s CEO Rosalind Brewer said: “Completion of this transaction represents a significant step forward in our transformation and will fuel investments to grow WBA’s core retail pharmacy and healthcare businesses.”
NAM Implications:
- A deal that represents best of both world’s for WBA and AmerisourceBergen.
- WBA can now focus on retail and building healthcare services.
- The key will be how fast ‘Amazon Prime Health’ could go in optimising healthcare/medical services needs…
- [Think diagnosis, online consultation, prescription fulfilment and follow-up monitoring, with insights derived from wearables: health-app, purchasing history, lifestyle, etc.]
