Ceremony Help has shuttered all of its shops after greater than six a long time in enterprise.
The pharmacy chain made the announcement in a put up on its web site, stating, “All Ceremony Help shops have now closed. We thank our loyal clients for his or her a few years of assist.”
ABC Information has reached out to the corporate for remark, however didn’t instantly hear again.
Regardless of its lengthy historical past within the pharmacy business, Ceremony Help has confronted mounting monetary challenges lately. The corporate most lately filed for chapter safety in Might, simply eight months after rising from a earlier Chapter 11 submitting in September 2024.
On the time, Ceremony Help — which operated greater than 1,200 shops throughout 15 states from California to Vermont — mentioned it deliberate to maintain shops open whereas promoting off belongings to keep away from disrupting clients’ prescription providers.
The corporate additionally introduced it had secured $1.94 billion in new financing from current lenders to remain operational throughout chapter proceedings.
A Ceremony-Help is seen on October 16, 2023 within the Crown Heights neighborhood of the Brooklyn borough of New York Metropolis.
Michael M. Santiago/Getty Photographs
Ceremony Help had first filed for Chapter 11 chapter in October 2023, permitting it to cut back billions in debt and shut tons of of underperforming shops. Alongside declining gross sales, the corporate has additionally confronted greater than 1,000 federal, state, and native lawsuits alleging its pharmacies improperly stuffed prescriptions for painkillers, in keeping with the New York Instances.
In March 2023, the U.S. Division of Justice filed a grievance accusing Ceremony Help of filling “illegal prescriptions for managed substances” that confirmed a number of crimson flags for misuse — allegations the corporate has denied.
As a part of its first chapter reorganization, Ceremony Help reached a settlement with the Justice Division in June 2024 resolving these allegations beneath the False Claims Act and Managed Substances Act. Below the settlement, the corporate agreed to pay the federal government $7.5 million and have a basic unsecured declare in Ceremony Help’s chapter case, that are being dealt with by the courtroom course of. Ceremony Help didn’t admit to any wrongdoing.
The corporate’s second chapter submitting in Might 2025 paused a lot of the remaining opioid-related lawsuits together with instances introduced by state and native governments in addition to particular person plaintiffs which at the moment are being dealt with by the chapter’s claims course of whereas Ceremony Help works by its wind-down plan — a plan that is still beneath courtroom evaluation amid ongoing objections from the U.S. Trustee.
Ceremony Help has denied the allegations in these lawsuits and in an announcement in 2023 mentioned it sought an “equitable” decision of opioid claims by the Chapter 11 course of.
Based in 1962 as Thrift D Low cost Heart in Scranton, Pennsylvania, Ceremony Help grew into the nation’s third-largest standalone pharmacy chain earlier than its remaining closure.
