CVS to spin off pharmacies, reverse years of deals and acquisitions

Bob covers the money in health care, focusing on health insurance and hospitals. His stories delve into Medicare Advantage, opaque prescription drug benefits, and how much executives actually make. He is also the author of the Health Care Inc. newsletter. You can reach Bob on Signal at bobjherman.09.

CVS Health will split into two separate companies, unraveling decades of deals that turned CVS into one of the largest health care conglomerates in the country.

Both of the new publicly traded companies will still have CVS in their names: CVS Health and CVS Pharmacy.

CVS Health will include the Caremark pharmacy benefit manager, the Aetna health insurer, the specialty pharmacy, and companies that provide primary care and home visits to older adults. That means high-cost drugs from the specialty pharmacy will still be intertwined with one of the country’s largest PBMs and insurers — a point of contention among critics who believe companies like CVS are profiting excessively from prescription drug dispensing.

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