Wal-Mart to expand drug sales

Bentonville, Ark. Wal-Mart Stores plans to offer more, lower-cost prescription drugs to step up its game against competing pharmacies, according to Bloomberg.

Wal-Mart plans to expand a program it now has in place with Caterpillar to other U.S. companies, the report said. Under the partnership, Caterpillar bypasses a third-party provider and gets pricing on drugs directly from the retailer. Caterpillar then passes some of those savings on to employees by waiving a $5 co-payment on generic drugs bought at Wal-Mart.

“We know from our test that it will drive volume through our stores, which is our goal behind this,” said Michael Struhs, Wal-Mart’s director of health and wellness business development. “We hope this is our next big thing.”

The company is pursuing the strategy after demand for its $4 medicines helped spur growth of its U.S. comparable-stores sales by 3.3% in 2008.