Health Insurance Daily

CVS Buys Caremark

It’s official. CVS will acquire Caremark for $27 billion. The new enterprise will fill more than one billion prescriptions per year. CVS and Caremark conservatively estimate their annual cost savings from the merger to be $500 million and expect revenue from new offerings to be $800 million to $1 billion in 2008 and increasing thereafter.

What the merger of the pharmacy retail giant and the large pharmacy benefit manager will mean for consumers remains to be seen. It should lead to increased purchasing power, says Sean Brandle, national pharmacy consulting practice leader for The Segal Company. “Health plan sponsors can use this purchasing leverage to obtain additional cost savings for their plans and members. Both plan sponsors and members stand to gain access to increased service levels, new products and aggressive drug prices at CVS retail stores.”

Information provided by BenefitNews March 20, 2007.

posted by Mike @ 3:45 PM