Name: Watch CVS Health CEO Larry Merlo Discuss The Company’s Powerful Response to Opioid Epidemic
Uploaded: 2017-10-26
Duration: 5 min 12 s
Description: Pharmacy chain has the tools to begin formulating solutions to America’s crisis.

Larry, it's been a couple a weeks now since you announced that CVS would limit opioid prescriptions to a seven day supply, compared to something like eighteen. You got everybody's attention on this. What's been the reaction? What have you been hearing from everyone? Yeah Suzy, the reaction has been extremely positive from the community at large. People talking about In their personal experiences and the fact that what may have started something very innocent for some acute injury ultimately led to addiction. And the belief that if they had gotten off of those opioid sooner That never would have happened. Doctors don't like to be told what to do. You didn't get any pushback from physicians? I would say that the physician community has been largely supportive. Everyone recognizes that this opioid epidemic that we're all dealing with, it's crying for a solution and all of us as healthcare stakeholders We need to do our part to begin to reverse this trend that we've seen emerging now for many years. What about the pharmacies? What have you heard from your competitors? Yeah, there's a lot of discussion taking place in the industry, and I do believe that there's reason for optimism. That Many of our competitors will join us in this effort to be an important part of the solution. So you really do think they are going to join you because when you, CBS, cut out tobacco and cigarette sales in all of their stores there were not many fast followers. Cigarettes are a very serious health care issue, so is the opioid crisis Do you think that this time it will be a little different? Yeah, Suzie. I certainly can't speak for the decision that they'll make. But there is a lot of good discussion taking place. And I do believe that there's optimism that we can create an industry solution out of this. Did you pick up the phone and call your counterpart over at Walgreens or at Walmart and say Hey guys, come on board? Well, we've had members of my team talking with their counterparts in these prospective competitors. So there has been a very collaborative conversation taking place. You have said all along that you're open to having more competition Coming into the pharmacy business and into the drug selling business. So I wanna talk to you a little bit about Amazon. Because as you know, the word is out that they could get into the drug selling business online. What are your thoughts on that? We shouldn't think of pharmacy as if we're buying a book or A television, that there is a product component of pharmacy, there's a service component of pharmacy. And the role that our pharmacists play across the Country. We have you know, almost 10, 000 pharmacies about 80 % of the US population lives within a few miles of the CBS. And I do believe that, that service component recognizes some elements that would be to some degree barriers to entry, You know and certainly if Amazon or any other competitor are decided to enter that space you know i'm confident that as our business continues to evolve we'll continue to be an effective competitor The people who are familiar with what Amazon might be doing are saying that one of their strategies might be to eliminate the middlemen and that would involve companies like CVS and pass along those savings. Right to the consumer. And also come up with ways that consumers could do comparison shopping when it comes to drugs. How could CBS compete against something like that ?>> Yes, Suzy, I think CBS help has created a very unique model and that we operate retail pharmacies, we have a PBM, And we have specialty pharmacy, we have many different assets that together they form what we like to refer to as the front door to healthcare. I think the opportunity for us, and it's what we've been working on, what we continue to work on, is how do we connect the dots across all of those different assets to bring innovation and create some type of differentiated experience? So I think that's a little bit what exists within our secret sauce, and what we'll continue to work on. We talk so much these days about being a disruptor, or being disrupted. How do you think Amazon could disrupt the drug- selling marketplace? Certainly, one of Amazon's core capabilities as Their you know delivery and customer experience okay, and yeah they do a very good job with that. You know, [ UNKNOWN ] Pharmacy you know it already exist you know in the US from CBS as well as others so I think that there are opportunities to effectively compete and I'm confident that we'll be able to do that if they or any other new entries enter the market place. [ BLANK_AUDIO ]

Watch CVS Health CEO Larry Merlo Discuss The Company’s Powerful Response to Opioid Epidemic

Pharmacy chain has the tools to begin formulating solutions to America’s crisis.