After 53 years in the same location Penacook Pharmacy closed Monday, the latest example of an independent pharmacist succumbing to changes in the industry.
“I grew up here. This was my grandfather’s store, and my father’s store and mine. So it’s very heartbreaking for us to have to leave,” said Kate Langlois-McNutt, who runs the business with her sister, Liz Langlois Navoy. “We would have loved to have retired here. But unfortunately, that’s just not in the cards for us.
“We knew that this day was coming and we hung on as long as we could, but we knew that the writing was on the wall.”
The records and inventory will be moving to the Rite Aid on North State street in Concord, she said.
On Monday, as word spread, a steady stream of customers came by the 305 Village Street site to express regrets and say goodbye.
The days when every town had at least one locally owned pharmacy are long gone. Independent pharmacies around the country have struggled in recent years, partly because of costs associated with COVID-19 but mostly because of vertical integration in the industry, with large chain pharmacies merging with insurers and the increasing importance of pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), which determine drug availability and costs.
In 2020, for example, independent Granite State Pharmacy in Concord’s South End closed after a decade as the successor to Modern Pharmacy, which had been there for 40 years. Inability to cover costs due to constraints imposed by PBMs was cited as a main reason by co-owner Tom Wilmot.
Penacook does still have one independent pharmacy: Fisherville Pharmacy on Fisherville Road remains open.
Penacook Pharmacy opened in 1969 by Fredick Langlais, who had worked with Taylor Drug. It was taken over by his son, Larry Langlais, and then his granddaughters.
