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Walgreens is dramatically shrinking its retail footprint and revamping its front-of-store product mix in a bid to fend off competition from online and other rivals who've upended the pharmacy business. The moves announced on Tuesday reflect big chain pharmacies' challenge to revive their core businesses amid sluggish demand, workforce crunches and shrinking prescription payments. (Reed, 10/16)

Walgreens is still waiting for its healthcare services bet to pay off as the overall business loses billions of dollars. Walgreens nearly doubled its U.S. healthcare services operating losses to $526 million in the fourth quarter of its fiscal 2024 ended Aug. 31, according to financial results released Tuesday. That brings full-year losses in the segment to $14.2 billion, compared with a loss of $1.7 billion in 2023. (Hudson, 10/15)

CVS is closing 900 stores. Rite-Aid is closing 500. Walgreens announced Tuesday it plans to close 1,200 stores, meaning 1 in 7 will disappear. What is going on with America’s drug stores? (Nathaniel Meyersohn, 10/16)

Johnson & Johnson must pay $15 million to a Connecticut man who alleges that he developed mesothelioma, a rare form of cancer, as a result of using the company's talc powder for decades, a jury found on Tuesday. Plaintiff Evan Plotkin sued the company in 2021 soon after his diagnosis, saying he was sickened by inhaling J&J's baby powder. (Pierson, 10/15)

The Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, one of the most prominent biotech research centers in the world, has laid off 87 employees, a spokesperson confirmed Sunday. The layoffs came as a lucrative partnership with Microsoft was expected to conclude at the end of the year. In an email to staff Thursday, Dr. Todd Golub, the Broad’s director, attributed the cuts to the “rapid pace of technological and scientific change [which] requires us to retool to stay ahead” in the institute’s field. (Hilliard, 10/15)

23andMe, a genetic-testing and ancestry-tracing company, collects the most personal kind of data from its customers: their DNA. Now, after a data breach in late 2023 and a full board resignation, the company faces an uncertain future, and many customers believe the genetic information they once willingly handed over could be vulnerable. CEO Anne Wojcicki has also previously said she'd consider a potential takeover of the company, which has raised concerns among customers about what would happen to their data in the event of a sale. Wojcicki later clarified that she is not considering third-party takeover proposals, and that she intends to take the company private. (Cerullo, 10/14)

Biotech investors have been buzzing around new areas of drug development this year, such as the red-hot obesity market. But there’s one field that has seen an even more significant amount of activity: autoimmune diseases. Companies that are developing new medicines for autoimmune conditions, as well as other immune system disorders, have brought in more money and closed more deals so far this year than most other areas, including the cardiometabolic field, data from investment bank Oppenheimer show. (Oncology remains king when it comes to investment, driven in part by interest in new approaches like radiopharmaceuticals). (DeAngelis, 10/14)

UK-based medical device maker CMR Surgical said on Tuesday that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has cleared the upgraded version of its surgical robot to be used in gall bladder removal procedures. The portable device, called Versius Surgical System, was cleared for use in patients aged 22 years and older who are eligible for minimally invasive surgery, the company said. (10/15)

A global consortium of doctors and researchers have created a way to map a virtual organ ahead of complicated surgeries that enables surgeons to test their actions in real time. (Bernstein and McGinley, 10/15)