Wentworth, who will become Walgreens CEO effective Oct.\u00a023, is the former CEO of Express Scripts, the pharmacy benefit manager acquired by Cigna in 2018. At Cigna, he led health services business Evernorth.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nDive Insight:<\/h3>\n
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Wentworth said his experience in the healthcare industry and knowledge of the business needs of health companies like insurers would help him take the reins at Walgreens, a company that has struggled as it attempts to pivot to health services.<\/p>\n
Wentworth has particular experience in pharmacy services. Before joining Express Scripts, one of the largest PBMs in the U.S., the longtime health executive led employer and key accounts at PBM Medco\u00a0and was CEO of Accredo, Medco\u2019s specialty pharmacy.<\/p>\n
\u201dThe [Walgreens] board has been focused on bringing in a CEO with deep healthcare experience, and we are pleased to welcome Tim Wentworth as the company\u2019s new CEO,\u201d Walgreens Executive Chairman Stefano Pessina said in a statement. \u201cWe are confident he is the right person to lead [Walgreens\u2019] next phase of growth into a customer-centric healthcare company.\u201d<\/p>\n
TD Cowen analyst Charles Rhyee\u00a0said in a note that Wentworth\u2019s experience aligns \u201cvery well\u201d with Walgreens\u2019 strategic direction, and that his experience makes him well-suited to manage Walgreens\u2019 PBM and payer relationships.<\/p>\n
Wentworth joins Walgreens during a pivotal change in the company\u2019s strategic direction as it faces notable headwinds, like flagging COVID-19 test and vaccine revenue,\u00a0<\/strong>staffing challenges in the pharmacy industry and reimbursement pressures from PBMs\u00a0\u2014 including his former employer.<\/p>\nA number of Walgreens pharmacists walked off the job this week, protesting labor conditions and pay.<\/p>\n
Walgreens laid off\u00a010% of its corporate workforce in May, one month before posting third quarter earnings results that missed Wall Street expectations.\u00a0Walgreens cut its 2023 outlook\u00a0along with the results.<\/p>\n
Walgreens \u2014 aiming to position itself more as a healthcare company than a pharmacy chain \u2014 has been investing heavily in its U.S. healthcare division.<\/p>\n
The division, which includes value-based medical chain VillageMD, at-home care provider CareCentrix and specialty pharmacy Shields Health Solutions, situates Walgreens more firmly against rival CVS Health, which also acquired a value-based medical group\u00a0this year.<\/p>\n
Walgreens reports earnings Thursday morning.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n
![\"Retail](\"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/05\/RETAIL-ONLINE-TRAINING-728-X-90.png\")
<\/a><\/p>
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to the article 3 min This audio is auto-generated. Please let us know if you have feedback. Dive Brief: Walgreens has named former Cigna […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10633,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10632","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10632","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10632"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10632\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10633"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10632"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10632"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dmsretail.com\/RetailNews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10632"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}