Following the strategic exit of Walmart Health Centers, Mairi Aybar, Head of the Walmart Healthcare Research Institute (WHRI), continues to focus on bringing clinical research opportunities to communities across the country. WHRI leverages Walmart’s extensive pharmacy network to drive clinical research initiatives and enhance participant diversity. In this conversation with Mairi, we explore how Walmart uses existing resources to integrate healthcare more closely with research, ensuring advancements in medical studies are accessible and representative of diverse populations to help improve the safety and effectiveness of new therapies for all.
Moe: Can you explain the impact of Walmart Health Center closures on the Research Institute and how you adjust your strategies?
Mairi: While Walmart Health will no longer operate health centers, we will take what we learned as we provide trusted health and wellness services across the country through our nearly 4,600 pharmacies and more than 3,000 Vision Centers. Our pharmacies have always been where we envisioned sustainably scaling WHRI and are integral to how we will deliver broader access to our patients. We are working to leverage infrastructure that Walmart already has and point it toward clinical research. Our mission to help people save money and live better remains, aligned with our ongoing strategy to leverage our network and ensure we continue to provide accessible and affordable healthcare services to our broad customer (patient) base.
Moe: What role does Walmart Healthcare Research Institute play in clinical trials?
Mairi: Although we are not a CRO and our pharmacies don’t serve as sites today, our role is in the clinical research process – we have the opportunity to increase community access to clinical research through patient education and engagement to help people identify trials they may qualify for. Our rigorous training protocols and extensive infrastructure help ensure trial safety and quality so all procedures meet the highest standards for the services we deliver. We ensure continuous education for our pharmacists and healthcare associates on the latest
healthcare practices, including ethical clinical trial handling, patient confidentiality, and data management to meet regulatory requirements and prepare them comprehensively to support patients seeking clinical research information.
Our strategic partnerships with key research organizations and pharmaceutical companies are foundational to our clinical research efforts. These alliances are meticulously structured to help ensure we are collaborating to expand access to clinical research and that trials are more reflective of those that bear the burden of disease. Ensuring appropriate representation we believe we can help enhance the safety of therapies that ultimately come to market. By acting as a bridge between patients and these entities, Walmart helps to facilitate a smooth and safe experience for participants, reinforcing our commitment to advancing medical research while protecting our patient’s health and personal information.
Moe: What infrastructure does Walmart leverage to support clinical research?
Mairi: Our strategy with clinical research has always been led through our pharmacies, which are streamlined with existing capabilities for various health services, including immunizations, screenings, and diagnostics. This infrastructure supports easy integration of clinical research tasks like trial prescreening and recruitment without significant additional investment. The strategic use of our current pharmacy infrastructure allows us to seamlessly incorporate research activities into the daily operational flow, making clinical research more accessible to the general public while maintaining our high service and patient care standards.
Moe: What motivated Walmart to enter the clinical trial space?
Mairi: Our entry into clinical research stems from a commitment to enhance customer quality of life, broaden healthcare options, and democratizing access to advanced medical research. Our founder, Sam Walton, envisioned a role for Walmart that went beyond retail to improve everyday living, and healthcare is a critical element of this vision. By leveraging our expansive network of pharmacies and robust logistical infrastructure, Walmart is uniquely positioned to facilitate more widespread and convenient access to clinical research.
Our strategy to make clinical research more accessible to diverse and underrepresented communities hinges on our extensive footprint, particularly in rural and medically underserved areas. With over 4,000 pharmacies strategically located in these regions, our pharmacists play a pivotal role in dispensing medication and act as primary healthcare touchpoints in their communities. This placement allows us to reach populations often overlooked in clinical research. Our comprehensive patient care and health literacy programs are designed to break down barriers to clinical research participation, ensuring that information about the potential benefits and availability of trials reaches all communities and makes these opportunities widely accessible and understandable.
Beyond our in-store efforts, we utilize advanced technology to broaden access to clinical research, tailoring our digital strategies to meet diverse customer needs and simplify enrollment. By collaborating with pharmaceutical companies and research organizations, we organize community engagement events that serve dual purposes: educating the public about their health and offering screenings for potential trial participation. These efforts ensure that patients are aware of and empowered to participate in clinical research, fostering a more inclusive and representative research environment.
Moe: Looking forward, what are Walmart’s plans for expanding its role in clinical research?
Mairi: We are set to expand our clinical research impact by focusing on health literacy and education, especially for prevalent conditions like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. We intend to scale our community engagement efforts including facilitating numerous events designed to educate and empower underrepresented populations. Through these initiatives, we aim to demystify clinical research and allow patients easier access to healthcare research and innovative medicines. We are also dedicated to forging and enhancing strategic partnerships within the healthcare and pharmaceutical sectors to ensure a broad spectrum of clinical research is available to our patients.
Moreover, by embedding clinical research into our overarching healthcare services, Walmart envisions an ecosystem where clinical research is a seamless component of patient care. This integration will enable us to provide our patients with a continuum of care options, helping them make informed decisions about their health treatments. We aim to ensure that every patient can access the latest and most effective therapeutic advances to improve treatment outcomes and overall health.
Moe Alsumidaie is Chief Editor of The Clinical Trial Vanguard. Moe holds decades of experience in the clinical trials industry. Moe also serves as Head of Research at CliniBiz and Chief Data Scientist at Annex Clinical Corporation.
