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Going back to its roots, CVS Health announced plans to open 20 “apothecary-style” pharmacies around the U.S., the first of which was sited in Chicago’s West End. 

The new brick-and-mortar stores will average 3,000 square feet, providing full-service pharmacies staffed by licensed pharmacists.

“Pharmacists are among the most accessible and most trusted health care providers,” Len Shankman, EVP and President of Pharmacy and Consumer Wellness for CVS Health is quoted in the press release for the plans. This new footprint is meant to enable “pharmacy teams to continue to build relationships with patients — their friends and neighbors — and provide on the ground pharmacy care in communities that need us,” Shankman explained.

CVS Health will invest in significant digital transformation in 2026, announcing a relationship with Google Cloud for the company’s “Health 100” AI-enabled program for a consumer engagement platform. The video here from CBS News Chicago talks about the venture.

The apothecary-style pharmacy program and Google Cloud investment add to CVS Health’s omnichannel, multi-modal approach to an expanding retail health ecosystem, such as the “CVS Pharmacy inside Target and Schnucks” channels, MinuteClinics, Oak Street Health primary care centers, and other primary care and pharmacy touchpoints in the growing CVS Health portfolio.

CVS Health leads the pharmacy chain industry in the U.S. with nearly 9,000 locations, followed by Walgreens with just over 8,000.

Pharmacy closures have compromised some communities’ health consumers’ ability to access prescription drugs at a retail storefront with the challenge of “pharmacy deserts” growing in certain communities — both urban and rural.

While mail ordered prescription drugs can be a choice for some patients, many people still prefer to visit a brick-and-mortar storefront especially if folks are keen to consult in real-time with a pharmacists professional, in-person and in confidence. (Remember the trust equity held by the profession).

Health Populi’s Hot Points:  Pharmacists ranked among the most honest and ethical professions in the U.S. in the latest Gallup Poll on the question — nearly on-par with physicians.

In further explaining the plan for local pharmacies, Shankman said, “We believe health care is best delivered locally, in the community by trusted, caring and tech0enabled colleagues…meeting consumers where, when and how they need us.”

At the company’s 4th Quarter 2025 investor meeting, held in February 2026, CVS Health expressed the company’s ambition, “To be America’s most trusted health care company,” as shown here in a slide from the meeting’s presentation deck.

Trust is best built locally, the 2025 and 2926 Edelman Trust Barometer studies revealed.

As consumers as health citizens feel trust eroding in government, media, and NGOs, they continue to trust employers as people re-trench in insular “bubbles” of friends, family, and co-workers. From the 2025 Barometer, we see here one of the recommendations that came out in the firm’s observation of a growing “Crisis of Grievance” (followed this year by a Year of Insularity) — noting that to build or re-build trust, enterprises should work together and invest in local communities.

CVS Health’s efforts to re-imagine local, neighborhood pharmacies-as-apothecaries may be able to build trust-bridges with local residents who have been under-served by other health care providers. With the pharmacist already a trusted, honest and ethical profession staffing that local storefront, we’ll hope that such trust-building will be a dividend accruing to people in their local communities and for their families’ and neighborhoods’ health.

In the meantime, one of the benefits of my holding European Citizenship has been living and working in the EU (complementing my US life and work) and especially appreciating life in Belgium, perennially. I’m delighted to share a new pharmacy format launching in March ’26 called the Yoboo Lifestyle Pharmacy, powered by the Colruyt Group. Colruyt is a longtime Belgium-based retail force, and has sited one of its innovative pharmacy storefronts in Antwerp, which is built on core pillars of nutrition, exercise, and rest. Pharmacists staff the location serving as health coaches, complemented by digital and wearable technology that interoperates with the Yoboo app — representing a new-fangled “phygital” platform.

As CEO Stefan Goethaert commented, “We are becoming a food and health retailer. Prevention is our compass.” Welcome to yet another riff on being an “Apotheek,” Dutch for “apothecary” or pharmacy.

Retail health and the growth of self-care digital health ecosystems are a global phenomenon, providing agency and innovation for health citizens the world over.

The post Past is Prologue as CVS Returns to Its “CVS Pharmacy” Roots – What it Means for Health Consumers and Retail Health (with a nod to Colruyt Group in Belgium) appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.