New pharmacy to open on Everett Optum campus

Published 1:30 am Wednesday, January 7, 2026

EVERETT— A new pharmacy is scheduled to open on January 27 on the main campus of Optum Health in downtown Everett, replacing the Bartell Drugs store that closed in July after 40 years in business.

Pharmacist Sovit Bista had worked as a pharmacy manager at various now-closed Bartell Drugs locations in Snohomish County, but not the one on the Optum campus on Rucker Avenue, formerly the Everett Clinic.

“I wanted to do something by myself and serve the public,” he said. “This is America, and that is what I am going to do.”

Bista bought the pharmacy in the federal bankruptcy court in New Jersey in July. All Bartell Drugs stores had closed after the May bankruptcy of its parent company, Rite Aid Corporation.

The Bartell Drugs on the Optum campus had closed early in July.

A pharmacy had been on the Optum campus for decades. One pharmacist, John Sontra, had worked at several drug stores on the campus from 1979 until its closure this past summer.

The pharmacy Bista bought moved to its present location in Founders Hall on the then Everett Clinic main campus in 1986. In 2000, the Everett Clinic bought the pharmacy, operating it until 2013 when Bartell Drugs purchased it.

In May, Bartell Drug’s parent company, Rite Aid, filed for bankruptcy, citing financial challenges, including the inability to obtain merchandise and non-prescription drugs from vendors without paying cash upfront.

All Rite Aid stores, including several in Snohomish County, have also closed as part of the bankruptcy proceedings. Some have since reopened as other businesses, including pharmacies that CVS took over.

Bista would not discuss the amount of money he paid but said it was enough “to drain my life savings.”

The new store will be called Robinhood Drugs, but Bista said a happy ending isn’t guaranteed for him or his patients.

Bista said there are only a few independent pharmacies in business in Snohomish County. A Google search by the Daily Herald for independent pharmacies in the county returned only 11 businesses.

Bartell Drugs was a local independent chain in the Pacific Northwest until it was bought by Rite Aid in 2020.

Bista said the problem is the difficulty of getting adequate reimbursement from pharmacy benefit managers, which determine how much a consumer will pay for a prescription medicine and how much pharmacists receive for handling the drug transaction.

“If you fill a brand-name prescription, you lose money for filling it,” he said. “So, how is it possible in a capitalistic economy that you lose money for serving the public?”

Bista said the profit margin for selling generic drugs to the public is higher but, even then, pharmacies can only survive on high prescription volume.

Ironically, one of the largest pharmacy benefit managers is Optum RX, according to a July 2024 report by the Federal Trade Commission. UnitedHealthcare owns both Optum RX and the medical campus where Bista’s new pharmacy will be located.

The report stated that “PBMs can have the ability and incentive to put downward pressure on reimbursement rates for rival, unaffiliated pharmacies, including to a degree that may be unsustainable for small, independent pharmacies.”

Optum runs a mail-order pharmacy business.

Optum officials did not respond to an email seeking comment.

Bista grew up in Nepal but came to the United States and obtained his pharmacy degree at Marshall University in West Virginia in 2019,

He had operated his own independent pharmacy in Austin, Texas, for several years. Still, he said it closed in 2021 because of the difficulty of making a profit due to low reimbursements from pharmacy benefit managers.

He moved to Washington after the closure.

Bista said he worked in various pharmacy and pharmacy manager positions at Bartell Drugs in Marysville, Arlington and Shoreline until the locations were closed last summer.

He said he loved interacting with customers, but he was frustrated by the chain store’s bureaucracy and staffing issues, which led to long patient waits.

“I was getting angry every day,” he said.

He said he would not blame the system for his situation because it was up to him to change his life.

Bista said he has hired four employees — pharmacy technicians and assistants — to staff the store. He said he hopes to open sometime in the next several weeks, but definitely by the end of January.

The name Robinhood Drugs is no coincidence.

Bista said he sees his mission as helping the masses, the patients, despite an entrenched pharmacy-benefit-management system that will make it difficult for him to prosper.

“I think there is a very high chance that I won’t be able to survive,” he said of his new business. “But I want to help people, like the elderly. That gives purpose to my profession. I am going to give it my all and operate until my last breath or the last penny in my pocket.”

Randy Diamond: 425-339-3097; randy.diamond@heraldnet.com.