Walgreens Announces a Major Change to 5,000 Pharmacies—Here’s How It’ll Affect You

Walgreens is one step closer to sealing the deal on its $10 billion acquisition with Sycamore Partners. Transitioning to private ownership will provide Walgreens some much-needed financial relief, as the company continues to grapple with weaker profit margins, post-COVID economic shock, and strong competition from rivals like CVS.

“While we are making progress against our ambitious turnaround strategy, meaningful value creation will take time, focus and change that is better managed as a private company,” said Walgreens CEO Tim Wentworth in a statement. “Sycamore will provide us with the expertise and experience of a partner with a strong track record of successful retail turnarounds.”

The financial cushion also means Walgreens will have the opportunity to revisit and expand on certain projects—most notably, its army of robot-operated micro-fulfillment centers.

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At least 5,000 Walgreens pharmacies will be supported by robots in 2025.

As Best Life previously reported, Walgreens plans to shutter 1,200 of its locations nationwide by the end of 2028. Nearly half of these closures are expected to occur this year alone. Be that as it may, the chain also intends to expand in 2025.

Before the year is up, Walgreens aims to have its 11 micro-fulfillment centers support more than 5,000 stores, according to a new CNBC report. In these automated centers, robots will fill “maintenance medications, or prescription drugs taken regularly to manage chronic health conditions, and refills that don’t require immediate pickup.” These can range from diabetes to high blood pressure medications. It’s worth noting that inhalers and birth control pill prescriptions will not be filled by the robot pods.

Walgreens first launched its micro-fulfillment centers in 2021, but paused in 2023 “to focus on gathering feedback and improving at existing sites.” At the time, the automation was responsible for serving 4,300 locations.

Walgreens told CNBC that as of Feb. 2025, the robot pods fulfill 40 percent of the prescription volume on average at supported pharmacies. Statistically speaking, that’s about 16 million prescriptions stocked per month.

According to Kayla Heffington, Walgreens’ pharmacy operating model vice president, the micro-fulfillment centers have saved the company $500 million. Furthermore, supported pharmacies handle 40 percent more vaccine appointments than stores where prescriptions are filled manually.

“Right now, they’re the backbone to really help us offset some of the workload in our stores, to obviously allow more time for our pharmacists and technicians to spend time with patients,” Rick Gates, Walgreens’ chief pharmacy officer, told CNBC.

“It gives us a lot more flexibility to bring down costs, to increase the care and increase speed to therapy—all those things,” he said.

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In the future, you may not have to go to the pharmacy at all.

Walgreens fills more than 170 million prescriptions annually—that’s a 126 percent year-over-year increase, said Heffington. The only way the company can sustain this growth is with aid from its micro-fulfillment centers. And the benefits go both ways, added Heffington, noting that customers will now have access to “real-time data.”

“If a patient called the store and said, ‘Hey, can you tell me where my prescription is today?’ [Workers] can do that with great specificity,” she said.

Looking towards the future, Gates said he can see a world in which the centers can ship prescriptions to patients directly, cutting out a trip to the pharmacy entirely. Reducing in-store prescription fulfillment also means pharmacy staff will have the bandwidth to provide more clinical services, including routine vaccinations (i.e., the flu shot). For customers, this can result in shorter wait times and better overall service.