Walgreens Closes $330 Million CareCentrix Deal

The Walgreens Boots Alliance, Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA) has completed its acquisition of a majority share in the home-based care platform CareCentrix, Inc.

This transaction deepens Walgreens’ reach into the home-based care space. It comes on the heels of prior investments in home-based primary care company VillageMD and the home health and hospice provider BrightSpring Health Services.

The company announced its intent to make the $330 million CareCentrix investment in October 2021.

“We created Walgreens Health to reimagine local health care and well-being for all. This partnership advances our ability to address the needs of people across care settings immediately following hospital discharge,” Walgreens CEO Roz Brewer said in a statement. “Our collaboration with CareCentrix is one of the many ways we are expanding on our pharmacy and patient expertise to surround individuals with care when and how they need it.”

The Walgreens Boots Alliance is a Fortune 500 health care and retail powerhouse and parent company of the Walgreens retail pharmacy chain. Like its rival CVS Health (NYSE: CVS), the company has been building up its health care delivery services with an emphasis on primary care and services in the home.

“Home is an exciting area for us to continue to grow,” Dr. Sashi Moodley, chief clinical officer for Walgreens Health, said at Home Health Care News’ Capital+Strategy event in March. “We want to orchestrate that journey, and we’ll look to partners to be able to play in the different spaces to help us again manage populations from a risk-based perspective, which is the ultimate goal.”

The CareCentrix investment will allow Walgreens to expand its range of health care services. The company can also leverage the platform to better coordinate those services, including greater integration between their health care teams and their pharmacists.

Key to this will be the data analytics capabilities that CareCentrix brings to the table. The company’s HomeFirst Analytics platform is designed to identify patients in need of care and match them to the right services.

Hartford, Connecticut-based CareCentrix manages care for 19 million members through a network of over 7,400 locations across more than 25 states. Walgreens now holds a 55% stake in the company, valued at $800 million valuation net of debt.

“The most challenging part of the health care journey is the last mile – extending health care delivery into people’s homes,” said John Driscoll, CEO, CareCentrix, in a statement. “Together with Walgreens Health, CareCentrix is able to combine Walgreens trusted community presence with our powerful technology-enabled care to better address patients’ unique health needs in their homes.”