Virginia has seen a net loss of 32 pharmacies in 2025, creating more of what are being called “pharmacy deserts,” which leave residents in a mix of urban and rural areas with limited access to life-preserving and life-saving medications.
“Pharmacy deserts are not an inconvenience. They’re a warning sign that our healthcare infrastructure is failing the very people who need it most,” said Jamie Fisher, executive director of the Virginia Pharmacy Association.
A study published earlier this year in the Journal of the American Pharmacists Association by researchers from VCU and the Virginia Board of Pharmacy found that of the state’s 2,198 census tracts, those in urban areas were more frequently pharmacy deserts (5.5 percent of tracts) than rural (2.9 percent) and suburban (0.1 percent).
The study identified seven tracts in Norfolk, five tracts in Richmond, four tracts in Halifax County (home to South Boston), and three tracts in both Newport News and Chesapeake as pharmacy deserts.
The biggest challenge is the economics of our broken healthcare system.
Earlier this year, the Virginia General Assembly passed the Save Local Pharmacies Act, bipartisan legislation that aimed to rein in profit-focused middlemen known as Pharmacy Benefit Managers, middlemen who effectively starve local pharmacies, as they typically pay pharmacies less than the actual cost to dispense a drug.
The law, which I can’t believe was actually signed into law by our MAGA governor, Glenn Youngkin, if only because, this one makes it hard for big-money people to make even bigger money, requires the Department of Medical Assistance Services to contract with one transparent PBM by July 1, 2026, to manage the pharmacy benefit.
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Chris Graham
