Retail pharmacies are often the first place that a patient goes for treatment or preventive care. Amid the global pandemic, we see our role as being an integral part of our patient’s healthcare team to support with improving health outcomes, especially for chronic diseases and complex conditions.

Walgreens Boots Alliance provides a unique resource through:

• Thousands of retail pharmacies around the world
• More than 120,000 healthcare service providers among our employees, with 36,000 of these being registered pharmacists
• A wealth of pharmacy services; including retail, specialty, medical facility, mail, online and mobile

Our pharmacists are on the front lines of neighborhood healthcare in local communities; providing medication management, administering vaccinations and partnering with health systems to advance health and wellness.

To meet the heightened need for healthcare access during the COVID-19 pandemic, we worked with governments to implement COVID-19 testing and administer vaccinations. Our pharmacists and pharmacy teams contacted hundreds of thousands of vulnerable patients to ensure they were aware of delivery and other options for receiving their prescriptions and to connect them to manufacturer co-pay and financial assistance programs if needed.

Support initiatives are essential to make medications more affordable and accessible for patients within our U.S. business, Walgreens, and for our two Latin American retail pharmacy chains, Farmacias Benavides in Mexico and Farmacias Ahumada in Chile. 

Walgreens collaborates with other businesses and organizations to make medications more affordable through copay assistance. Through a number of programs, Walgreens helped approximately 829,000 patients in the U.S. secure more than $430 million in copay assistance for prescriptions during fiscal 2020.

Walgreens lowered the prices of hundreds of medications offered through its Prescription Savings Club during the pandemic, saving members more than $164 million off the cash retail price on prescriptions and immunizations between April 30 and October 2020. In Chile, the Ahumada Contigo (Ahumada With You) access program has expanded to now include more than 695 products that patients can purchase at significantly lower prices. In Mexico, generics brand Almus was introduced in Farmacias Benavides in 2019, providing an international standard of quality at competitive prices.

Walgreens helps to address health disparities in underserved communities through its 12-year sponsorship of the First Ladies Health Initiative. More than 400,000 people have been screened or educated through the initiative. The group provides no-cost medical screenings, educational information and personal contacts to help detect or prevent illnesses that disproportionately impact African-American and Latino communities.

Boots UK partners with BBC Children in Need’s A Million & Me campaign, which aims to support young people, between 8 and 13 years old, with their emotional well-being. 

Boots worked with mental health experts at Shout, a partner of the Million & Me campaign, in creating and sharing a simple program for parents or caregivers to follow. This program explained the language needed to connect with young people on the challenges of COVID-19, encouraging continued active physical and mental stimulation, creating games around new safe health protocols and teaching young people simple methods to help others with their mental health struggles.

Walgreens is focused on collaborative solutions, working with government and business partners on drug take back and addiction mitigation initiatives. The WBA board of directors continues to oversee our management of risks related to the dispensing of prescription opioid medication and our expanding, multi-million dollar effort to help combat overdose-related deaths.

We have worked with representatives at all levels of government, numerous public agencies, research organizations and industry groups to drive and influence legislation related to prescription opioids. Among the solutions we support are mandatory e-prescriptions, especially for prescription opioids, which can enhance security and curb fraud, waste and abuse; a nationwide prescription drug monitoring program (PDMP); and seven-day supply limits for acute prescription opioid prescribing.

Boots Thailand has supported the Baan Gerda charity for 10 years, donating an accumulated 18.8 million Thai baht ($600,000) to the organization, which supports children and orphans infected with HIV.

Our corporate giving approach is focused on donating to organizations with health programs that align to our core business and CSR values and priorities. We also give to organizations that work on social welfare and education issues.

As shown in the charts in this section, in fiscal 2020 the company’s direct contributions totaled $28.9 million. Our accumulated giving for the five-year period from fiscal 2016, the first year that WBA collected company-wide data, totals $167.5 million.