CVS Health chief executive officer Larry Merlo Wednesday said the company’s $69 billion acquisition of health insurance giant Aetna is “making good progress” with state regulators and on track to close later this year.
Merlo said the company is seeking approval from 28 departments of insurance and many are holding hearings, with the key market of Florida already giving it approval. CVS is also complying with a so-called “second request,” for additional information from the U.S. Department of Justice about the pharmacy chain’s agreement to buy the health insurer.
But Merlo told analysts on the company’s first quarter earnings the deal remains on track to close in the second half of the year.
CVS has a network of more than 9,700 retail pharmacies in 49 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Brazil and more than 1,100 Minute Clinic locations in 33 states. Aetna has more than 20 million enrollees in its various health plans. Aetna operates commercial health plans for employers and also administers health benefits for state Medicaid programs for poor Americans and Medicare coverage for the elderly via Medicare Advantage plans.
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CVS reported first quarter net income rose nearly 5% to $998 million . Revenue grew 2.6 percent to $45.69 billion as the company reported strong sales from its specialty pharmacy business and is seeing similar retention of customers using its pharmacy benefit management business as in past year, Merlo said.
Date: December 24, 2018
Source: Forbes