World’s largest retailer and the largest employer in the United States, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., announced it was expanding its $4 generic drug program by an additional six new compounds including generic versions of the widely used heart medication Coreg and the anti-fungal drug Lamisil. Also, the retailer is to sell two popular birth control medications (Ortho-Cyclen and Ortho-Tricyclen) and a fertility drug (clomiphene) for $9 per month, because they are more expensive and would not be profitable at $4 per month.

The Wal-Mart generic drug program thus covers 361 prescriptions, an increase of about 30 prescriptions. However, the prescriptions include different formulations of the same compound, so the number of different active drug substances in the program is actually less than 160. The $4 program covers around 40 percent of prescriptions sold at the Wal-Mart in-store pharmacies.

"We'll be far north of 40 percent with this expansion," Wal-Mart Chief Operating Officer Bill Simon said on a conference call, as quoted by Reuters. "We now have coverage in virtually every therapeutic category that patients or customers are dealing with on a day-to-day basis," Simon said.

Wal-Mart also announced plans earlier this year for as many as 400 in-store health clinics. Wal-Mart claims its $4 generics program has cut over $610 million in health care costs since it started. "We have taken what we do best, working with suppliers, driving costs out of the supply chain and passing those savings to our customers. Now we're applying that to health care," chief operating officer Bill Simon said.

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. also recently announced it will pressure its suppliers to provide carbon footprint data and look for ways to diminish it, the company announced yesterday. At first, suppliers of seven types of products will be eyed: DVDs, toothpaste, soap, milk, beer, vacuum cleaners and soda. It's worth mentioning that Wal-Mart's network includes more than 60,000 suppliers across hundreds of industries. However, only between 25 to 30 suppliers are participating in this pilot program, with no timeframe set for reporting the carbon emissions data.