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How CVS built a healthcare empire it now plans to split

By Reuters News

Nov 4 (Reuters) - CVS Health CVS.N said on Wednesday it would split its retail pharmacy business from its insurance and pharmacy benefit operations, unwinding years of expansion that turned the drugstore chain into one of the largest US healthcare conglomerates.

Here is a timeline of the healthcare giant's more than six-decade history:


1963: The first Consumer Value Store, selling health and beauty products, opens in Lowell, Massachusetts. The company adopts the CVS name a year later

1969: CVS is sold to Melville Corp


1972: CVS nearly doubles in size with the acquisition of 84 Clinton Drug and Discount stores


1990s: Melville launches a multi-year reorganization, selling or spinning off most of its businesses. CVS becomes its core business and the parent company is renamed CVS Corp


1997: CVS acquires Revco D.S. for $2.8 billion, creating what was then the second-largest US drugstore chain by revenue


2004: CVS buys Eckerd drugstores and its mail-order pharmacy business from J.C. Penney for $2.15 billion


2006: CVS acquires in-store clinic operator MinuteClinic, expanding into healthcare services. It also buys thousands of Sav-On and Osco drugstores from Albertsons


2007: CVS acquires Caremark for $26.5 billion, creating CVS Caremark and establishing a major presence in pharmacy benefit management


2014-2015: CVS expands through a series of acquisitions, including Coram for $2.1 billion, long-term care pharmacy company Omnicare for $12.9 billion, Navarro Discount Pharmacy and Target's pharmacy and clinic businesses


2017: CVS agrees to acquire health insurer Aetna in a $69 billion deal, then the largest US healthcare merger, betting that combining insurance, pharmacy and healthcare services could help curb soaring medical costs


2018: CVS completes its acquisition of Aetna, adding health insurance to its portfolio and accelerating its push into integrated healthcare. Reuters says the purchase ultimately cost about $78 billion


2021: Karen Lynch succeeds Larry Merlo as president and CEO of CVS Health


2022: CVS agrees to acquire home healthcare services company Signify Health for about $8 billion in cash, expanding its ability to provide care in patients' homes


2023: CVS expands further into primary care with its $9.5 billion acquisition of Oak Street Health


2023: CVS Caremark launches TrueCost, a pharmacy benefit pricing model designed to pass negotiated drug discounts to clients and increase transparency around prescription costs


2024: Reuters reports CVS is exploring options that could include breaking up the company by separating its retail and insurance businesses


2024: CVS replaces CEO Karen Lynch with company veteran David Joyner


2024-2025: The company cuts costs, closes stores, exits certain markets and reshuffles senior management as it grapples with rising medical costs in its insurance business

2026: CVS plans to break up its $117 billion business, separating its retail pharmacies from Caremark and Aetna.

After the split, planned for early 2028, the two resulting companies will both be publicly traded, and current shareholders will own shares in both.

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