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Technology Stocks : eDrugstores: Drugstore.com, PlanetRx and Soma -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tom D who wrote (103)	6/24/1999 1:01:00 AM
From: Tom D	Respond to of 254

Rite Aid takes 25% stake in drugstore.com Updated 5:59 PM ET June 23, 1999 news.excite.com CAMP HILL, PA, Jun 23 (Reuters) -- Rite Aid Corp., one of the nation's largest drugstore chains, and vitamin retailer General Nutrition Cos. Inc. (GNC) announced on Tuesday that they have agreed to invest in drugstore.com. The 10-year deal will allow drugstore.com customers to pick up prescriptions at 3,800 Rite Aid stores. In addition, the deal broadens the ability of drugstore.com to provide prescriptions to customers with insurance reimbursement plans, including those enrolled in Rite Aid's PCS Health Systems. Rite Aid, which had $12.7 billion in sales for the year ended February 1999, would acquire a 25.3% stake in drugstore.com for $7.6 million, and GNC would buy an 8% stake for $2.4 million. GNC's sales for the year ended January 1999 totalled $1.4 billion. Leading Internet retailer Amazon.com Inc. is a major stakeholder in drugstore.com. After this deal, Amazon.com will own 29%, down from its initial 46% investment in February, a drugstore.com spokeswoman said. Rite Aid/GNC's previously announced Internet e-commerce and nutritional information site on the Internet would be folded into drugstore.com. Karen Rugen, Rite Aid's senior vice president of corporate communications, said that a Rite Aid website that handles only refills is running at a rate to sell $20 million of prescriptions annually. This arrangement is expected to increase store traffic at Rite Aid's stores and give customers an extra way to shop, while not requiring a further cash investment from Rite Aid, Rugen said. In January, Rite Aid and GNC said that they were forming a marketing alliance to sell GNC's full line of vitamins and dietary supplements in Rite Aid stores and set up an Internet site to sell nutrition products and prescription medicine. Drugstore.com, which said last month that it plans an initial public offering of stock, will have the exclusive online rights to sell all GNC-brand products, as well as a new Rite Aid/GNC PharmAssure brand of nutritional supplements to be introduced this fall. The alliance follows last month's acquisition of Soma.com by drug chain CVS Corp. for $30 million. Walgreen Co. has its own website, walgreens.com, and it has an alliance to supply products to online grocer Peapod Inc. in the San Francisco area. Tom D