A sign with the company's logo stands outside a Rite Aid store in Salem, N.H., on Wednesday, May 29, 2024. Associated Press file photo

TYRONE — Many Rite Aid pharmacies in the region are closing this week, leaving few options left for community members to fill their prescription medication orders.

The Rite Aid pharmacy along Logan Avenue will close Wednesday, employees confirmed, noting the store is up for sale and will remain open for an undetermined amount of time.

According to a sign posted on the store’s door, customer prescriptions will be packed and moved to the Bellwood location, 3106 East Pleasant Valley, starting Friday, May 23.

After Wednesday, the Community Pharmacy Compounding and Wellness Center along Pennsylvania Avenue will be the only pharmacy left in town, said Rose Black, executive director of the Tyrone Area Chamber of Commerce.

Community Pharmacy co-owner and pharmacist Jason Kessinger said several people have already requested to transfer their prescriptions to Community Pharmacy and pharmacists there are willing to help others in the community do the same.

People can stop in, fill out some information and facilitate the transfer of their prescriptions from Rite Aid to Community Pharmacy, he said, adding, “We’re willing to help anyone in the community that wants to join our pharmacy.”

While the increased foot traffic is good for his business, Kessinger said the industry’s trend of losing another pharmacy chain is concerning.

“The industry and the way it’s trending is a concern, but we try to do some different things here to not only increase our customer base but our income that we bring in as well,” Kessinger said.

Kessinger said different services provided at his pharmacy help offset some of the challenges that pharmacy benefit managers — or PBMs — bring to independent pharmacies. PBMs are third-party intermediaries between drug manufactures and insurance providers that reimburse pharmacies for the prescriptions customers buy with insurance.

Port Matilda resident Deb Vanallman said she can get Express Scripts sent to her home, but it’s “very sad” to see Rite Aid’s pharmacy close because her family lives in Tyrone, noting she has shopped at the Tyrone location for years.

There are a lot of older residents in the borough who don’t drive and are left with only one option to fill their needed medications, she said.

“It is very concerning for Tyrone,” Vanallman said. “A lot of older people live in town, so are they going to go to Altoona? It’s sad.”

The Rite Aid pharmacy in Cresson, 1212 Second St., will also close Wednesday, meaning today is the last day prescriptions will be filled at that location, an employee said.

“There’s no set date for the store to close at this time,” the employee said.

In Portage, the Rite Aid pharmacy along Main Street will close Thursday. The storefront will close “within a few weeks” after the pharmacy, an employee said.

In Huntingdon, the Rite Aid pharmacy along William Penn Highway will close next Tuesday, May 27, an employee confirmed, adding prescriptions will be transferred to the Chestnut Avenue location in Altoona.

A liquidation sale of the store is expected to occur about a month after the pharmacy closes, the employee said.

M. Veil Griffith, administrator of the Cambria County Area Agency on Aging in Johnstown, said she used to live in Cresson and is sad to see Rite Aid close after Mainline Pharmacy closed its doors last year.

Griffith said Cresson residents will have to drive to Ebensburg — either Walmart or Giant Eagle — to get their prescriptions filled at a nearby pharmacy.

“The closure of Rite Aid in Cresson and Portage will have a serious negative impact on all of the people in the community, especially the older adults,” Griffith said. “If they have to travel out of the community or farther distances to try to get their prescription filled, it’s going to be very difficult.