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Walmart special: Retail giant’s Canadian pharmacies to use Calian software

October 3, 2024

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Fresh off new collaborations with a pair of high-profile Ottawa partners, Calian Group is keeping the deals coming – this time with one of the world’s biggest retailers. The Kanata-based company announced this week it has reached an agreement that will see Walmart Canada use Calian’s custom-built digital health platform at more than 330 of its in-store pharmacies across the country. Terms of the deal were not disclosed. Calian said the software, called Nexi, will allow the retail giant to deliver an “enhanced, seamless and secure experience to patients with chronic medical conditions and complex medication requirements.” The Kanata company said the proprietary technology provides an “all-in-one smart pharmacy tool” to automate the administration of patients’ specialty pharmaceutical needs for health conditions such as autoimmune disorders and cancer. The new agreement caps off a busy few weeks for Calian, one of the National Capital Region’s most valuable publicly listed companies with a market capitalization of more than $550 million. In mid-September, the firm signed a three-year deal with the Ottawa Senators to feature its logo on the NHL club’s road jerseys. Calian’s head office is located next door to the Canadian Tire Centre, the Senators’ home arena, and CEO Kevin Ford said the deal represented the alignment of two organizations that share many of the same values and winning characteristics like perseverance, resiliency and agility.” Also last month, Calian finalized a deal with Ottawa-based satellite operator Telesat to supply key software for Telesat’s state-of-the-art low-Earth-orbit Lightspeed satellite network that is expected to begin service in 2027. The Kanata firm’s software will gather information from various components in hundreds of satellites that will eventually comprise the network, giving technicians a clear view of the data so they can accurately assess how well the satellites are performing. Valérie Travain-Milone, president of Calian’s advanced technology division that will be designing the software, told Techopia last month the deal is an important one for the company. “It’s not like it was an RFP that was sent to only local players,” she said. “It was an international competition. So the fact that Calian was awarded this contract shows we are able to compete against international players.” Calian, which trades on the Toronto Stock Exchange, provides health-care and IT services, training and advanced technology such as satellite components. It reported revenues of $185 million for the three-month period ending June 30, up 11 per cent from the previous year and the highest third-quarter total in the company’s history. The company, which has a total workforce of more than 5,600, is projecting revenues of between $750 million and $810 million for fiscal 2024. It would mark the company’s seventh consecutive year of double-digit revenue growth. Yet despite closing another foreign acquisition and landing hundreds of millions of dollars in new contracts already this year, Calian has had a rough ride on the markets in 2024. The firm’s shares were trading at $46.67 early Thursday afternoon, down nearly 20 per cent since the beginning of January.