Good morning, Broadsheet readers! AI company Humane seeks a sale, a new social media platform for artists gained more than 600,000 users in the past week, and Fortune senior features writer Maria Aspan digs into the great American pharmacy meltdown. Have a relaxing weekend!
– Drugstore disasters. American pharmacies are facing a national crisis—as you may have noticed at your local drugstore.
Pharmacists are overworked and fleeing the industry. Big chains are closing hundreds of stores and responding to retail crime fears by locking up the deodorant. Meanwhile, the small independent pharmacies trying to serve their local communities are getting forced out of business as their margins for filling prescriptions get squeezed. For the new issue of Fortune, I dug into why this is all happening, as seen through the story of Bartell’s, a beloved—and slowly dying—Seattle drugstore now owned by Rite Aid.
Even the gender dynamics of the industry’s C-suite are reflecting this turmoil: At the start of 2023, all three big retail pharmacy chains were led by women. But then Heyward Donigan left Rite Aid, months before it filed for bankruptcy protection, and Walgreens parted ways with Roz Brewer. Both companies are now run by men, leaving only CVS Health’s Karen Lynch at the top of a major retail pharmacy. (CVS, which also owns insurer Aetna and many other large health care businesses, is No. 6 on this year’s Fortune 500 and inarguably doing the best of all the big retail pharmacy chains. But even it is closing stores, and has seen its share price fall about 15% in the past year.)
All of the industry’s problems are particularly visible in Seattle, a wealthy city that has nevertheless seen dozens of pharmacies close in the past year. The epicenter of these shutdowns is Bartell’s, a 130-year-old family business that sold to Rite Aid in 2020 and that locals call “part of the fabric of Seattle.” Since Rite Aid filed for bankruptcy protection in October, it’s closed a third of Bartell’s 67 locations—including the last 24-hour pharmacy operated by any company in downtown Seattle.
“The situation is now very urgent,” Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington told me. “When you take a pharmacy out of a neighborhood, and they no longer have that in their community, it’s a real problem.”
Over the past several months, I spoke with dozens of pharmacists, executives, lawmakers, analysts, workers, customers, and others to explain what’s happening in Seattle and across the nation.
As Jacqueline Eide, a pharmacist who spent 15 years at Bartell’s and who now owns a pharmacy in the rural Washington town of Goldendale, summarizes the ongoing, industry-wide disaster: “Everybody knows we’re broken.”
Read my full story here.
Maria Aspan
maria.aspan@fortune.com
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ALSO IN THE HEADLINES
- Pin drops, nobody hears. Sources close to AI company Humane, cofounded by Apple alum Bethany Bongiorno, say it is in talks with HP and other companies to sell for more than $1 billion. No formal sale process has started, but the company started sourcing offers just a week after the release of its unpopular and widely panned AI pin. New York Times
- Toll call. New York Governor Kathy Hochul stopped a proposed congestion pricing plan in New York City on Wednesday that would have charged E-Z pass drivers $15 to drive into Manhattan south of 60th street. The fee slated for a June 30 launch was supposed to fund public transportation and stop traffic, and Hochul's 11th-hour decision has outraged many New Yorkers. CNN
- Taking the AI out of Insta. Cara, a new social media platform for artists developed by renowned photographer Jingna Zhang, has seen an increase of more than 600,000 users in the past week as artists reject the AI training policies on other platforms. Zhang, a victim of AI plagiarism herself, created Cara due to Meta’s insistence that its AI models be trained on content from Instagram. TechCrunch
- Foul play. Chicago Sky player Chennedy Carter's hip-check of the Indiana Fever's Caitlin Clark in a WNBA game last weekend has become a much-talked about incident, even prompting a GOP congressman to weigh in. But, this piece argues, outrage should be not against Clark's fellow athletes, but commentators like Pat McAfee who called Clark a “white b*tch” when discussing the incident. (He has since apologized). CNN
- Safety first. A new Florida law allows women to receive C-sections outside of hospitals. Intended to increase access to maternity care (in the state that recently implemented a draconian new abortion ban), the new policy comes with risks. Bloomberg
MOVERS AND SHAKERS: J.P. Morgan Wealth Management appointed Jane Bailey as chief financial officer and Jennifer Barrett as head of content and communications. Oregon Public Broadcasting named CNN's Rachel Smolkin as president and CEO.
ON MY RADAR
Nicole Shanahan is just getting started Wired
Chrissy Teigen has 42 million Instagram followers—but wants her kids to ‘get through high school’ before joining social media Fortune
Reclaiming my birth name as a Black woman made me a stronger executive leader—after 20-plus years as ‘Shauna’ Fortune
PARTING WORDS
“Nobody could understand how this stupid, simple little dress became such a huge phenomenon.”
— Diane von Furstenberg on the wrap dress. She's the subject of a new documentary.