By Tom Murphy
CVS Health swung to a fourth-quarter profit and is starting the new year with a management shakeup for its largest business.
The company’s CVS Caremark pharmacy benefit management segment will now be run by Dr. Alan Lotvin, a corporate executive vice president. CVS Health said Wednesday that he will replace Derica Rice as president.
Rice, a former top executive with drugmaker Eli Lilly and Co., will leave at the end of the month.
The Caremark business runs prescription drug plans for employers, insurers and other large clients. It pulled in more than $141 billion in revenue last year.
CVS Health, which has added one of the nation’s largest health insurers to its business mix, also said Wednesday that it expects adjusted earnings for 2020 to range between $7.04 and $7.17 per share.
Analysts expect, on average, earnings of $7.15 per share, according to FactSet. The company’s stock got off to a rough start last year, when CVS Health debuted a forecast that fell short of analyst expectations.
CVS Health Corp. runs more than 9,900 retail locations and processes over a billion prescriptions annually.
The company acquired the health insurer Aetna more than a year ago and plans to use the new business to help it move deeper into providing health care services and managing customer care.
In the final quarter of 2019, CVS Health Corp. earned $1.75 billion. That compares to a loss of $419 million in the final quarter of 2018, when the company booked a big charge from a struggling business.
In the most recent quarter, adjusted earnings totaled $1.73 per share, the Woonsocket, Rhode Island, company said.
Revenue climbed to $66.89 billion from $54.42 billion.
Analysts polled by FactSet expected a profit of $1.68 per share on revenue of $63.93 billion.
Company shares are up 0.41% or $0.59, to $74.44 at 9:39am Wednesday.
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Source: AP News
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