The latest play made by Fred’s Inc. (FRED) has stirred up the pharmacy industry just before the close of the year.The company has agreed to acquire 865 Rite Aid (RAD) stores for $950 million in cash following Rite Aid's merger with Walgreens Boots Alliance (WBA). The deal doubles Fred's 650-store footprint, mainly across the southeastern states. The purchase would presumably give Fred's, which has a mainly rural presence, a larger footprint in urban areas. $FREDQ, FRED'S INC / D This comes as a direct result of the previously announced acquisition of the pharmacy giant last year.In October, Walgreens' officials expressed that they need more time to divest between 500 and 1,000 stores to comply with federal antitrust regulations. Even with this as the case, it has now shifted the spotlight back to the pharmacy space.Lately speculation has risen surrounding pharmacies and their place in the medical marijuana industry, in my opinion as a result of there being a stalemate within the pharmacy space overall.Let’s face it, pharmacies aren’t really sexy…sure you can realize revenue growth and the fundamentals for long term investment but for those looking for the shorter-term excitement and speculation, it can be sometimes hard to find.This having been said, mergers and acquisitions certainly are not “unsexy” and as far as speculation goes, what more could you ask for, leading up to a major buyout, uplisting, or sale of assets? Shares of FRED exploded on Tuesday to highs of $20.42 during the market hours as this news of a near $1bllion buyout circulated its way to the street.Both WBA and RAD saw bullish moves during early trading, though not to the same extent of FRED’s near 100% move. Unrelated to the transaction, CVS (CVS) also continue to climb higher as attention shifted back to pharmacy stocks.On the small and microcap front, I’m looking to several stocks that could benefit at least from the attention that billion dollar deals like this can bring.Progressive Care, Inc. (RXMD) has long been on the growth path with recent results coming in at record numbers.Not only did the company just announce a record quarter but operating results from November showed that the company delivered nearly $2million for the month and almost 19,000 prescriptions.This is a 31% and 23% increase over November 2015, respectively. The company’s recent build out has added more production space to their south Florida location while also opening up square footage for an automated prescription-filling robot.Progressive previously stated on a conference call that the company would perform its first official audit for the 2016 annual report, with plans of uplisting to a higher exchange by 2018.This specific uplisting will be “within OTC Markets AND/OR Uplist through an M&A Transaction to NASDAQ.” It wouldn’t be a surprise considering the M&A climate already in place and the Fred’s announcement is just one example of a stronger M&A arena for the pharmacy space.It should also be mentioned that there have been few updates on the company’s entry into the MSO marketplace in South Florida.The newly wholly owned subsidiary, Smart Medical Alliance Inc., has been built to assist healthcare providers with navigating the complex risk management environment of their insurance network contracts. So this could be something to be mindful of heading into the new year.Other public pharmacy companies like Diplomat Pharmacy (DPLO) could actually surprise investors in 2017.The company’s stock price was hurt earlier during H2 of 2016 with changes in regulation, which mainly hurt specialty pharmacies.The company’s recently announced Diplomat Specialty Infusion Group, is geared to create a new brand uniting five subsidiaries—American Homecare Federation, At-Home IV Infusion Professional, BioRx, MedPro Rx, and XAS Infusion Suites.Diplomat’s focus has been on medication management programs for people with complex chronic diseases, including oncology, immunology, hepatitis, multiple sclerosis, specialized infusion therapy and many other serious or long-term conditions.And according to Insider Monkey, DPLO has seen an increase in hedge fund interest in recent months. “Phill Gross and Robert Atchinson’s Adage Capital Management holds the most valuable position in Diplomat. According to regulatory filings, the fund has an $11.2 million position in the stock. Coming in second is Ken Griffin of Citadel Investment Group, with a $3 million position. Other members of the smart money that hold long positions encompass Matthew A. Weatherbie’s Weatherbie Capital, Israel Englander’s Millennium Management which is one of the 10 largest hedge funds in the world and George Hall’s Clinton Group.”Shares of Diplomat have maintained a consistent trend recently, even amidst multiple press releases of “investor alerts” from law firms.After dropping significantly in early November, shares of DPLO have maintained a sideways trend (similar to that of Progressive) for the last few weeks but are still slightly up from November lows of $12.47.The company will be presenting at the JP Morgan Healthcare Conference in January.