Several years ago pharmacies were profitable businesses, and they had little competition. But this is changing. The sector has been overhauled, resulting in fewer regulations. Still, five percent of more than one million existing pharmacies are at risk of bankruptcy.
Healthcare spending cuts focused mostly on prescription drugs, which slashed drugstore profits by 34% so that they only account for 6.9% of drugstore revenues. Around 300 pharmacies have already closed shop, though the reason they failed is that regional governments (Catalonia was the worst) were slow to pay their service providers -- including pharmacies. Dried up revenue, not deregulation is killing the pharmacy business.
