Wal-Mart Expands Discount Drug Program Nationwide

Wal-Mart Stores on Monday announced that it will expand its generic prescription drug discount program -- introduced earlier this year -- to stores in the 11 remaining states that do not yet offer the discount, Dow Jones reports (Goldstein, Dow Jones, 11/27).

Wal-Mart in September announced that the program -- under which company pharmacies sell 30-day prescriptions of certain generic medications for $4 -- initially would include 65 Wal-Mart, Sam's Club and Neighborhood Market pharmacies in the Tampa, Fla., area and would expand statewide in early 2007 and possibly to other states in the future. Since September, Wal-Mart expanded the program statewide in Florida and to 37 additional states. The program provides discounts for 160 different generic medications in more than 300 dosages (California Healthline, 11/16).

The program now will be available in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Hawaii, Louisiana, Minnesota, Montana, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Wisconsin and Wyoming. All of Wal-Mart's 3,810 pharmacies nationwide will offer the discount.

Since the program's launch, 2.1 million more new prescriptions were filled in states that offered the program compared with the same time period one year earlier, Wal-Mart officials said. Officials added that the accelerated expansion of the program was the result of consumer demand (Dow Jones, 11/27).