Massachusetts pharmacy chain closes

A chain of pharmacies that has served Freetown, the Cape and other areas for more than forty years has closed its doors for the last time. The married proprietors of Sedell’s Pharmacy have sold their last three locations to the national drug store corporation CVS and announced their retirement. CVS actively pursued the acquisition of their pharmacy and took over their customer base without any interruption in service, though Freetown residents will now have to drive a small distance further to get their prescriptions.

The proprietors cited their advancing age and their difficulty in finding someone to take over the management of their stores as the primary factors in their decision to sell the business. At one point they had nine locations across the eastern side of Massachusetts, from Plymouth to Falmouth. They had already sold six of them in recent years, choosing to concentrate on their Carver, Lakeville and Assonet Village branches. However, as they crossed into their seventies, they decided to retire and close the remaining locations.

The closure of Sedell’s leaves Freetown without a local pharmacy. The Town Supervisor and Board of Selectmen have stated that they would like to remedy this situation by attracting a new drug store to the city.

Pharmacies have some unusual and stringent conditions to meet when it comes to closing a business. As CVS purchased the last three remaining Sedell’s locations, they were legally required to transfer the prescriptions and patient records to their own pharmacies. In the case of the Sedell’s location in Assonet Village, the customers were transferred to a CVS branch location in Fall River, only two miles away from the closed pharmacy. The confidentiality of all patient records is protected by law during the transition from one business to another.

Source: The Herald News, “Longtime Freetown pharmacy Sedell’s closes its doors”, Jeffrey D. Wagner, December 23, 2013