Italy - UK Partnership

BUSINESS | 09 www.italchamind.eu Walgreens Boots Alliance From a family business to the worldwide pharmacy giant that is now trialling in Italy S tefano Pessina is the Executive Vice Chairman and CEO of the global pharmacy-led company Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA). The company employs circa 415,000 people and operates in more than 25 countries with more than 18,500 stores. THE BUILDING OFTHE PHARMACY EMPIRE Before becoming one of the most successful businessmen in the world, Mr Pessina studied nuclear engineering at Politecnico di Milano. In the mid-1970s, he chose to join his family’s firm, a pharmaceutical wholesaler in Naples. He developed a new process automation solution and also started acquiring a number of small wholesalers in Southern Italy to create Alleanza Farmaceutica in 1977, which later became Alleanza Salute Italia. In 1986, Mr Pessina’s company combined with the pharmaceutical wholesaler Di Pharma, founded by entrepreneur and pharmacist Ornella Barra, who is now the co-COO of WBA and one of the most powerful women in the world, according to Fortune. The two became business and life partners. It was the beginning of the empire’s creation. After Italy, they decided to expand in Europe. In 1991, the new group Alliance Santé was created from the combination of Alleanza Salute Italia with two French companies. In just a few years, it became a leading player in the French pharmaceutical market. Mr Pessina strived to expand the business even more and in 1997 merged with UniChem, a British wholesaler and pharmacy chain, creating Alliance UniChem. His next target – after growing in wholesale across Continental Europe – would be Boots, the beloved British pharmaceutical chain founded in 1849 in Nottingham. It took some time to convince the directors of the chain to accept the offer but eventually, in 2006, Boots was merged with Alliance UniChem, marking the origin of Alliance Boots. In June 2012, Alliance Boots entered into a strategic partnership with Walgreens, the largest drugstore chain in the USA. In December 2014, the two companies fully merged to create Walgreens Boots Alliance, the first global pharmacy-led, health and wellbeing enterprise, and listed on NASDAQ. Which country is next? WBA is now growing in China while also investing strongly on technology and innovation. WBA is set to ensure its pharmacies to become a hub for customers to have a close relationship with the pharmacist, while also using Apps to remember appointments and screenings, to store their data and make the in-pharmacy process faster. THE ITALIANMARKET The Italian market was not open to pharmacy chains until the Italian law DDL n.2085-B was established. In 2017, in fact, the Italian government approved a bill with the purpose of boosting competition in some sectors, including the pharmacy one. Now a test is underway having bought some pharmacies, including the pharmacy chain Essere Benessere (which had gone bankrupt) and opened four Boots pharmacies in Milan. The sign reads ‘Farmacia & Beauty Boots’, giving emphasis to both the pharmacy and the beauty side of the offer, which combines health and wellbeing products and services with a wide range of beauty brands. WBA is now carefully testing the market, as they do not impose a standard model but adapt it to the local market. · Photography courtesy of WBA