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LloydsPharmacy’s parent company has warned of potential “further closures” to its pharmacies as part of the continued “restructuring” in the company’s European business.
In its final fiscal report for 2018/2019, McKesson Corporation’s European arm noted no change in its revenues for 2018/2019 despite a “solid performance outside of the UK, mostly offset by the fiscal 2018 reduction of approximately 200 retail pharmacies and challenging market environments in the UK and France”.
In October 2017, LloydsPharmacy announced plans to close nearly 200 pharmacies because clawbacks and changes to government policy on reimbursement had made them “commercially unviable”.
Speaking on a conference call to shareholders on 8 May 2019, Britt Vitalone, executive vice president and chief financial officer at McKesson, said the company was “working to reinforce and accelerate our UK restructuring through further closures of retail pharmacy stores and cost management efforts throughout Europe”.
He added that over the past quarter, McKesson “took additional actions … to further rationalise our footprint and back office operations in Europe”.
“Overall, for Europe, we anticipate revenue to be growing by low-to-mid single digits, driven by market growth with no incremental UK cuts contemplated in our fiscal 2020 guide,” he said.
