Walgreens Becomes First U.S. Pharmacy Chain to Say It Will Sell Abortion Pill
Walgreens
Boots Alliance Inc. is the first major national pharmacy chain to say it plans to dispense the abortion pill under new rules laid out by the Food and Drug Administration.
The new rules, issued Tuesday, allow any pharmacy to become certified to dispense mifepristone, the drug that blocks a hormone needed for pregnancy and is FDA-approved for use up to 10 weeks in pregnancy. Until the changes, the agency had allowed only a handful of mail-order pharmacies and certified doctors to hand out the drug.
Walgreens on Wednesday didn’t give a timetable for when it would start filling mifepristone. It said it would only do so in states where abortion is legal.
“We intend to become a certified pharmacy under the program,” said a Walgreens spokesman. “We are working through the registration, necessary training of our pharmacists, as well as evaluating our pharmacy network in terms of where we normally dispense products that have extra FDA requirements and will dispense these consistent with federal and state laws.”
Other pharmacy chains, including
Rite Aid Corp.
, said they are still reviewing the FDA’s new rules.
CVS Health Corp.
is reviewing the “safety program for mifepristone to determine the requirements to dispense in states that do not restrict the dispensing of medications prescribed for elective termination of pregnancy,” a company spokeswoman said.
Under the FDA rules, pharmacies that want to dispense the pill must become certified, promise they will only fill prescriptions from certified prescribers and make other plans to keep records and assure confidentiality.
Some independent pharmacies said Wednesday that they’d like to become certified to dispense mifepristone, said Ronna Hauser, senior vice president of policy and pharmacy affairs for the National Community Pharmacists Association, which has 19,400 members.
She said the FDA’s requirements for certification didn’t seem overly burdensome and would be familiar to pharmacists who have signed up to dispense other drugs with special safety rules from the FDA.
“I think in those states where it will be allowed to be dispensed, I think our members will make a personal business decision,” she said.
A move to fill mifepristone prescriptions could expose pharmacy stores to criticism from abortion opponents. Students for Life Action, an antiabortion group, said it would consider protesting pharmacies that choose to dispense the abortion pill.
“We are willing to bring to their doorsteps the kind of activism that has taken place outside of Planned Parenthood vendors,” a spokeswoman for the group said.
Women who want an abortion via pill take mifepristone, followed 24 to 48 hours later by misoprostol, a generic drug that causes uterine contractions. Many women have sought prescriptions, especially since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Most abortions in the U.S. are now completed using the pills, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that supports abortion rights and tracks abortion statistics.
—Laura Kusisto contributed to this article
Write to Liz Essley Whyte at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
Walgreens
Boots Alliance Inc. is the first major national pharmacy chain to say it plans to dispense the abortion pill under new rules laid out by the Food and Drug Administration.
The new rules, issued Tuesday, allow any pharmacy to become certified to dispense mifepristone, the drug that blocks a hormone needed for pregnancy and is FDA-approved for use up to 10 weeks in pregnancy. Until the changes, the agency had allowed only a handful of mail-order pharmacies and certified doctors to hand out the drug.
Walgreens on Wednesday didn’t give a timetable for when it would start filling mifepristone. It said it would only do so in states where abortion is legal.
“We intend to become a certified pharmacy under the program,” said a Walgreens spokesman. “We are working through the registration, necessary training of our pharmacists, as well as evaluating our pharmacy network in terms of where we normally dispense products that have extra FDA requirements and will dispense these consistent with federal and state laws.”
Other pharmacy chains, including
Rite Aid Corp.
, said they are still reviewing the FDA’s new rules.
CVS Health Corp.
is reviewing the “safety program for mifepristone to determine the requirements to dispense in states that do not restrict the dispensing of medications prescribed for elective termination of pregnancy,” a company spokeswoman said.
Under the FDA rules, pharmacies that want to dispense the pill must become certified, promise they will only fill prescriptions from certified prescribers and make other plans to keep records and assure confidentiality.
Some independent pharmacies said Wednesday that they’d like to become certified to dispense mifepristone, said Ronna Hauser, senior vice president of policy and pharmacy affairs for the National Community Pharmacists Association, which has 19,400 members.
She said the FDA’s requirements for certification didn’t seem overly burdensome and would be familiar to pharmacists who have signed up to dispense other drugs with special safety rules from the FDA.
“I think in those states where it will be allowed to be dispensed, I think our members will make a personal business decision,” she said.
A move to fill mifepristone prescriptions could expose pharmacy stores to criticism from abortion opponents. Students for Life Action, an antiabortion group, said it would consider protesting pharmacies that choose to dispense the abortion pill.
“We are willing to bring to their doorsteps the kind of activism that has taken place outside of Planned Parenthood vendors,” a spokeswoman for the group said.
Women who want an abortion via pill take mifepristone, followed 24 to 48 hours later by misoprostol, a generic drug that causes uterine contractions. Many women have sought prescriptions, especially since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Most abortions in the U.S. are now completed using the pills, according to the Guttmacher Institute, an organization that supports abortion rights and tracks abortion statistics.
—Laura Kusisto contributed to this article
Write to Liz Essley Whyte at [email protected]
Copyright ©2022 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved. 87990cbe856818d5eddac44c7b1cdeb8
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