Koffler's Drugs

Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation

Type	Subsidiary
Industry	Drugstore, Retail
Founded	1962
Founder	Murray Koffler
Headquarters	Toronto, Ontario, Canada
Number of locations	1,307 (Shoppers Drug Mart and Pharmaprix) 56 (Home Health Care)
Key people	Mike Motz (President)
Products	Drugs, Health
Parent	Loblaw Companies
Subsidiaries	Murale
Website	www.shoppersdrugmart.ca

Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation is a Canadian retail pharmacy chain based in Toronto, Ontario. It has more than 1,253 stores operating under the names Shoppers Drug Mart in nine provinces and two territories and Pharmaprix in Quebec.

Founded by Murray Koffler, the Koffler family still retains ownership of the Super-Pharm pharmacy which is in Israel, Poland, and China. Super-Pharm uses the same logo as Shoppers Drug Mart, created by the artist Sylvain Liu. It also uses some of the same private-label brands, such as Life Brand and Quo. In 2013, Brampton-based Loblaw Companies acquired Shoppers Drug Mart Corporation for $12.4 billion in cash and stock.

At the age of twenty, Murray Koffler inherited two Koffler's Drugs pharmacies, first at 376 College Street and second on Bathurst Street north of St. Clair Avenue West, then opened a suburban location at Don Mills Centre on the advice of E.P. Taylor.. By 1962, Koffler's had grown to a chain of 17 pharmacies, which he renamed "Shoppers Drug Mart" in the 1970s. The first store named "Shoppers Drug Mart" was at Shoppers World Danforth from which it derived the name.

Koffler revamped the concept of the 20th century “drug store” in Canada by removing the soda fountain and emphasizing the dispensary, requiring his pharmacists to wear starched white coats as a symbol of their professionalism. In the mid-1950s, he began acquiring other drug stores and organized them around a then-novel franchising concept: pharmacist “associates” would own and operate their own stores within the system and share in the profits. In 1968, Shoppers Drug Mart grew to 52 stores in Ontario by merging with 33 Plaza Drugstores. In 1971, Shoppers Drug Mart purchased 87 Cunningham Drug Stores in British Columbia and Alberta. The first Pharmaprix store opened in 1972 in Québec. In 1974, Lord’s Supervalue Pharmacies 26 stores in Atlantic Canada joined the Shoppers Drug Mart family. In 1986 Shoppers Drug Mart bought Super X Drugstores, an Ontario-area chain of 72 stores. In 1992, the company bought up the Western Canadian chain Pinder's Drugs, and followed this in 1995 with a chain of 24 Bi-Rite Drug Stores based in western Canada. Also in 1995, Shoppers Drug Mart acquired 135 Big V Drugstores. In 1996, the first Shoppers Home Health Care store opened.