Walgreens Will Soon Control 90 Percent of Brooklyn's Chain Drug Stores: Report

Walgreens is expected to buy Rite Aid as soon as Wednesday, sources tell the Wall Street Journal.

The deal would add Rite Aid’s 4,600 U.S. stores to Walgreens’ 13,200 stores in 11 countries, reportedly putting the worth of the new combined company at about $10 billion.

Walgreens already acquired Duane Reade in 2010 — meaning if this deal goes through, CVS would be the company’s only real competitor left in New York City.

And in Brooklyn in particular, the latest merger would apparently give Walgreens a near-monopoly on the drug-store market.

Ben Wellington — founder of the popular i Quant NY urban-planning blog, sometimes statistics teacher at the Pratt Institute and esteemed TED Talk giver — compiled exhaustive data last year on the distribution of Walgreens, Duane Reade, Rite Aid and CVS outposts across NYC.

Wellington found that in Brooklyn, about 50 percent of building lots count Rite Aid as their closest pharmacy chain, while about 40 percent of lots are nearest to a Walgreens or Duane Reade.

That leaves only about 10 percent of homes whose nearest drug-store chain is a CVS.

(Wellington did note, however, that “the measure is crude because it gives equal weight to all lots, regardless of the number of people residing on them. So it is not a measure of the number of people closest to each pharmacy.”)

Associated Press business reporter Tom Murphy writes on Tuesday that Walgreens’ Rite Aid acquisition “would make one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical buyers even bigger at a time when other key health care players like insurers and drugmakers also are expanding through multi-billion dollar deals.”

However, it could also “help Walgreens lower price for its customers because its growing volume of prescriptions would put it in a better position in talks with drug providers,” he writes.

What do you think, pretty people of Brooklyn? Good or bad for the borough?