By Deborah Borfitz 

July 1, 2025 | In the span of three years, Walgreens—an integral part of communities across the U.S. for well over a century—has positioned itself as a key player in the clinical trial ecosystem highlighted by more than 35 biopharma partnerships and the engagement of over 17 million customers participating in industry-sponsored studies. The thesis that co-locating trials where patients are “actually works,” says Chief Biopharma Officer Ramita Tandon. 

The company’s clinical trials model is built around identifying and recruiting patients for trials, improving accessibility via 20 clinical trial sites housed within its community pharmacies, and understanding who and how to engage patients based on real-world evidence and analysis. “Community-centered clinical trials are absolutely pivotal to the future of clinical research,” says Tandon, “by building trust and broadening the scope and inclusivity of medical research.” 

Walgreens Clinical Trials has succeeded in recruiting a base that’s “44% racially or ethnically diverse,” helping to solve one of the biggest challenges facing the field today, she notes. Historically, many studies have lacked representation of certain populations. 

“The care and services that we continue to provide through our community-based pharmacies and clinical trial sites align [well] with national efforts to ensure patients have more seamless access to care, are healthy and are achieving better outcomes,” she adds. “That has been part of the DNA of Walgreens for a very long time.” 

Last summer, Walgreens announced it had formed a strategic partnership with the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), which aims to address barriers in decentralized clinical trial access. The five-year deal was valued at up to $100 million. This came on the heels of a project award valued at up to $25 million from BARDA to conduct an observational clinical study focused on assessing correlates of protection using COVID-19 vaccine data. 

The enrollment phase of that trial is concluding soon, says Tandon. While initially deployed for BARDA COVID-19 research, these retail clinical trial sites can be expanded to other disease areas, further demonstrating their versatility and importance. 

Walgreens’ trial work has been centered largely around common diseases, including cardiovascular, weight management, dermatology, Alzheimer’s, diagnostics, and respiratory conditions, she says. Walgreens has partnered with over 28 life sciences companies across 11 therapeutic areas. 

Walgreens has also been partnering with companies like Palantir to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computational tools to identify and categorize potential clinical trial participants and optimize trial design and execution, Tandon says. “Obviously, we sit on real-time patient transactions [both front-of-store and clinical pharmacy]... so when we get protocols that are shared by our life science partners, we have the ability to use some of these tools to quickly identify the [right-sized] patient panel that is going to be relevant for these programs.” 

In line with the "trust but verify" concept, scientists and epidemiologists at Walgreens ensure output from these tools makes sense and don’t inadvertently introduce any biases, she adds. That said, Walgreens uses AI to help “canvas the ecosystem to identify the initial cohorts” and quickly identify relevant patients for ongoing trials. In many cases, this has helped exceed recruitment timelines and accelerate the drug development cycle.  

The Community-based Model 

The community-based trial sites have enabled Walgreens to directly engage with patients to educate them about what a clinical trial is and equip them with the information and support necessary to make an informed and comfortable decision about participating, Tandon says. “We’re doubling down to help change the narrative of how patients view clinical trials so that they see it as a care option.” 

Through the partnership with BARDA, Walgreens has “built the vessel” to effectively enhance trial recruitment efforts leveraging the community-based model, she says, adding that more information will be forthcoming on that front. “Clinical trials here at Walgreens is not something separate, but part of what we can offer to our patients that come in, particularly as we’re looking to continue to support their care journey.”  

Trial conduct has evolved significantly over the past three years with the accelerated adoption of decentralized and hybrid models, enhanced use of digital technologies, and increased focus on patient-centricity. Trials include phase 2 and 3 studies as well as post-marketing studies with the bulk of activity in the late-phase premarketing space. Tandon notes it has become a major part of the service footprint of Walgreens.  

The company is also sitting on a “treasure trove of patient insights,” both qualitative and quantitative, helping study sponsors and investigators understand the patient groups they are targeting and how to best engage with them. 

“This is not a one-size-fits-all strategy,” Tandon says, citing differences in how patient populations in urban and rural areas consume and respond to information. In the Deep South, for example, there is a decided preference for traditional mailings that people will review as part of their decision-making process. 

Picking the Right Locations

Walgreens has been intentional about the location of its 20 community-based trial sites and is informed by data and insights from industry and government partners about the patient populations they are seeking to support and reach for their clinical trials, says Tandon.  

Notably, the trial sites are in high-traffic stores,” she says. They are not among the 1,200 or so underperforming retail stores in the U.S. that Walgreens announced it plans to close over the next three years.   

The more than 35 biopharma partnerships have all aimed to bring trials directly to underserved communities, including a project last year that supported AstraZeneca’s AIRE (Accelerating Innovations and Research Excellence in Clinical Trials) mobile units. That partnership story, recently told via a blog on the AstraZeneca website, involved a clinical research bus coming into the parking lots of Walgreens stores in the Los Angeles and San Antonio areas to provide education and eliminate barriers to study participation. 

The “clinic on wheels” allowed patients to be prescreened for AstraZeneca trials, including some with Walgreens. The partnership resulted in more than 20,000 people engaged in clinical trials and disease education, with more than 1,900 individuals getting prescreened. 

Evidence Building

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the size of Walgreens’ dedicated clinical trials team has been growing along with the number of trials over the past three years, says Tandon. Upwards of 60 people now comprise the Walgreens Clinical Trials team, including project managers, clinical trial operations experts and pharmacists, some of whom have prior experience working with contract research or site management organizations. 

The evidence for the pharmacy-led approach is also mounting. A peer-reviewed article that was published late last year in JAMA (DOI: 10.1001/jama.2024.22949) reports on BARDA’s first-time funding of a trial at Walgreens pharmacies that succeeded in reaching more diverse patients, speeding recruitment, and improving outcomes.  

Additionally, Walgreens has published seven case studies on its website highlighting its capabilities as demonstrated in clinical trials for HIV (identifying patients for a pre-exposure prophylaxis survey), essential tremor (quickly exceeding recruitment goal), COVID-19 rebound (enrolling over 60% of total participants), cytomegalovirus infection (exceeding patient referral and diversity targets), combination COVID/RSV vaccine (easily exceeding outreach goal), heterozygous familial hypercholesterolemia/atherosclerotic cardiovascular disease (significant recruitment of minority populations), and Alzheimer’s disease (nearly double the national average for Hispanic/Latino referral rate). 

“We’ve played a pivotal role in shaping the future of clinical trials,” says Tandon. In fact, Walgreens is a standout among U.S. retail pharmacies for having the longest commitment to clinical research, “unlocking pharmacy assets in a way [that] moves the needle in terms of the sheer number of patients participating and representation from underserved and harder-to-reach communities.”