Check out prescription drugs: Wal-Mart is making more of them available at $4 a prescription, while Rite-Aid is barely seeing any increase in the number of prescriptions sold at stores open at least a year.

Wal-Mart on Thursday said it is now offering $4 prescriptions on drugs to treat glaucoma, fungal infection and acne, among other conditions. The move expands the world’s largest retailer’s $4 prescription program, which was launched with great fanfare last year.
 
That program had raised concerns that traditional drugstores would lose business. But that hasn’t not really been a big issue, Mitchell Corwin, analyst at Morningstar, said.
 
“I think there’s some impact on the margin, but I don’t think it is a significant factor,” he said.
 
Meanwhile, Rite Aid on Thursday reported a $69.9 million loss in the second quarter and cut its full-year sales outlook.

The bulk of the loss was due to costs related to its acquisition of the U.S. Brooks and Eckerd drugstore chains. But Rite Aid also filled only 0.4 percent more prescriptions at stores open at last a year.
 
Wal-Mart isn’t as much of a competitor with Rite Aid as it is with other drugstores, due to the location of Rite Aid’s stores. Corwin said that Rite Aid’s prescription growth trails competitors like Walgreen and CVS Caremark in part due to its older store base. It is easier for newer stores to show growth as they ramp up than it is for older, more establishes stores, he said.
 
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