NCPA releases 2025 overview of independent community pharmacy

NEW ORLEANS – The 2025 NCPA Digest, sponsored by Cardinal Health, was released this week as part of the National Community Pharmacists Association’s Annual Convention, being held Oct. 18-21 in New Orleans.  

The NCPA Digest found that independent community pharmacies represent nearly 36% of all retail pharmacies in the United States. It continues to be true, the organization says, that no single pharmacy chain has more stores than all independents combined.  

“Independent community and long-term care pharmacies have long been known for the many indispensable services and quality care they offer,” said NCPA CEO B. Douglas Hoey, pharmacist. “With economic pressures on pharmacies continuing unabated, it is critical that policymakers change the pharmacy payment model to compensate for value and recognize pharmacists for the services they do and can provide. This fight continues, with the help of the NCPA Digest report and the goal of healthier pharmacies and patients.”  

Highlights from the NCPA Digest covering the independent community pharmacy marketplace include:  

• The estimated number of independent community pharmacies declined. There were 18,960 locations as of July 2025, down from 18,984 in June 2024. 
• Independent pharmacy represented a $103 billion marketplace in 2024, a year in which the industry saw a 10-year high in the cost of goods, a 10-year high in average annual sales, and a 10-year low in gross profits. This reflects factors like high cost, high-volume prescriptions such as GLP-1 agonists, low or below-cost third-party reimbursements, and inflation (which showed up in wages and overhead costs). 
• In 2024, the average prescription volume was 67,601 prescriptions per store, compared to 59,644 in 2023, potentially caused by pharmacy closures reducing pharmacy access for patients. 

This year, the report also details the USC-NCPA Pharmacy Access Initiative that monitors pharmacy closures across the country and their effects on pharmacy shortage areas or pharmacy deserts. Among other things, the initiative finds that roughly one in eight neighborhoods in the U.S. meet its criteria for pharmacy shortage areas.