The nation’s largest discount retail chain is launching a new program in Iowa today (Thursday) to sell hundreds of prescription drugs on the cheap. Wal-Mart has 60 stores in Iowa, all of which will now offer the program. It provides customers a selection of more than 300 of the most popular generic prescription drugs at four-dollars for a month’s supply in commonly-prescribed dosages. Wal-Mart spokesman Ryan Horn says the program will save consumers a bundle.
Horn says with one commonly-used antibiotic drug, amoxicillin, the program will save users in the current states at least 50-million dollars a year. He says the program will cover 314 prescription drugs and 150 compounds in 24 therapeutic categories.
Horn says the drugs will cover a host of ailments, from things as simple as allergies and colds all the way to diabetes and cancer. The program was rolled out last month in 15 states and now Iowa’s joining the second wave with 11 other states, in what will likely be a nationwide program soon. In a news release, Wal-Mart president and C-E-O Lee Scott says -quote- “No one in Iowa should have to cut pills in half, decide between taking medicine and putting food on the table, or go without medicines altogether.”
Analysts say the program could help spark competition and bring lower prices to other Iowa drug outlets. Horn says there’s been no turbulence from pharmaceutical companies. He says the company followed its standard path by increasing efficiency through using its “large distribution network and our logistical energies to produce some savings, drive some costs out of the system and then pass that cost on to our customers.” News conferences are being held by Wal-Mart today (Thursday) in West Des Moines, Marion and the Quad Cities.