A container of mifepristone, the first drug used in medical abortion, is prepared for a patient at Alamo Women’s Clinic in Carbondale, Illinois, on April 20, 2023.
Evelyn Hochstein | Reuters
CVS and walgreens Abortion drug mifepristone to be sold this month Pharmacy location Spokespersons for the companies told CNBC on Friday that in states where doing so is legal.
CVS and Walgreens get Certification From the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to distribute commonly used pills in retail pharmacies, spokespeople for each company said in separate statements.
CVS will begin dispensing the prescriptions in Massachusetts and Rhode Island in the coming weeks, a company spokesman said. They added that CVS will expand to other states “on a rolling basis as permitted by law.”
A Walgreens spokesperson said it expects to begin dispensing prescriptions for the drug within a week at select pharmacy locations in New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, California and Illinois.
It’s worth noting that the chain will not deliver medications by mail.New York Times report News earlier Friday.
Mifepristone is the first drug used in both medical abortion options.
The FDA is confronting anti-abortion doctors in an unprecedented legal challenge to its approval of mifepristone more than two decades ago. An anti-abortion rights group sued the agency in 2022, seeking to declare the approval illegal and remove the drug from the U.S. market entirely.
On March 26, the Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in the high-profile case.
The FDA said in January that it would allow Mifepristone is available in retail pharmacies for the first time in the United States.
under regulatory changes At the agency, pharmacies can apply for certification to distribute the drug to one of the two companies that manufacture it. The certification will allow pharmacies to dispense prescriptions directly to patients after receiving a prescription from a certified prescriber.
Before the FDA regulatory change, only a few mail-order pharmacies or specially certified doctors or clinics could distribute mifepristone.
Regulatory changes could expand access to abortion as the Biden administration grapples with how best to protect abortion rights.Abortion rights in the United States are sharp reduction Supreme Court decides to overturn landmark Roe v. Wade in 2022 ruling.
The Biden administration seeks to make abortion and contraception a key platform in the president’s 2024 campaign.
Statistically, medical abortion is the most common method of terminating a pregnancy in the United States data From the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.The method is approved FDA uses Within 10 weeks of pregnancy.
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