Cardinal Health (NYSE:CAH) renewal of a key drug distribution contract with Walgreen Co. earlier this month brings renewed focus on just how heavily reliant Cardinal is on its top two customers. In Cardinal’s fiscal 2010, Walgreen (24 percent) and CVS (22 percent) combined for a 46 percent share of revenues. That’s up from a combined 43 percent in 2008. Adam Fein, a pharmaceutical industry consultant with Pembroke Consulting, stated on his blog Drug Channels: “The data show a company that’s increasingly at the mercy of its two dominant customers.”

As you’ve probably heard, Walgreensannounced yesterday it won’t fill prescriptions from patients who have CVS Caremark as their PBM. Although the decision is due to take effect gradually as contracts renew, it’s fairly dramatic news. The context for the move is that now that PBM Caremark has merged with retail chain CVS, Walgreens feels it’s [...]

Highlights of the important and the interesting from the world of healthcare:Indian biotech’s prominence grows: Five years ago, big biotechnology firm collaborations in India were restricted to fee-for-service deals, but that’s changing as more and more co-development deals are struck. Indian biotechs look poised to capitalize as Big Pharma companies not only move more of [...]

Walk-in clinics diagnose and treat common illnesses like strep throat and provide services like school physicals for modest, set prices. They have the potential to help the uninsured. But the clinics are unlikely to be located in the poorest of neighborhoods, a study finds.

When drugstore chain CVS said in 2006 that it would buy CareMark Rx — one of the nation’s largest pharmacy benefits managers — critics complained that the combination could create a conflict of interests. Could the conflict be here?

Heads of state, health care officials, ordinary citizens — and the Wall Street Journal and New York Times — are tracking the advance of swine flu across the world. Roche is ready to deliver up to 3 million doses of its anti-viral medicine, Tamiflu.

By the end of the year, Cleveland Clinic doctors will be a phone call away to consult with nurse practitioners who staff nine MinuteClinics from Westlake to Chagrin Falls. The clinics, usually inside CVS Pharmacy stores, provide limited services, usually within a half-hour.