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CVS Caremark has revealed its fourth-quarter profits nearly doubled as it cut costs following its acquisition of Caremark and benefited from new generic drugs.
For the period ending 29 December, the group’s earnings after preferred dividends jumped to $811.2m compared with $413.8m in the previous year. For the year, CVS earned $2.62bn, up from $1.36bn in 2006.
Excluding an income tax provision, profit rose to $860.3m from $442.9m, while the group announced annual profits of $2.84bn.
CVS Caremark, which is the largest pharmacy chain in the US, acquired pharmacy benefits manager Caremark Rx last March, and in doing so created one of the largest companies in the prescription drug sector.
Tom Ryan, CVS president and chief executive, said: “We are a different company today than we were a year ago. We’re a pharmacy health care service company.”
He said the company had solid revenue growth and improved gross margins in both the retail and pharmacy benefits management segments in the quarter and expected the same for 2008.
Sales jumped by 82% to $21.94bn from $12.07bn a year ago.
The group’s retail pharmacy sales totalled $11.64bn, while pharmacy services revenue was $11.61bn.
Copyright © PA Business 2008
