2025 Pharmacy Market Report
The pharmacy sector should no longer be viewed as a single industry bucket. In 2025, the market clearly separated into distinct subsectors with very different economics, buyer pools, and valuation profiles: retail/community pharmacy, long-term care and skilled nursing pharmacy, specialty pharmacy, compounding pharmacy, wholesale/distribution, home infusion/specialty infusion pharmacy, and mail order/central fill/digital pharmacy. At the same time, broader drug-spend growth remained strong, with published forecasts calling for overall U.S. prescription drug spending to rise by roughly 9% to 11% in 2025, and even faster growth in clinic settings.
Our overall read is this: 2025 was difficult for undifferentiated retail pharmacy, constructive for distribution, and strongest for specialty, LTC/skilled, and infusion-oriented platforms.Heading into 2026, buyers are likely to continue rewarding pharmacy businesses that control higher-acuity patients, institutional relationships, or specialty dispensing economics, while commodity script-fill models remain under pressure. PBM scrutiny, Medicare Part D redesign, specialty drug growth, aging demographics, and supply-chain/automation investments are reshaping the sector.
