CVS gets a booster shot from Aetna, revenue soars

CVS Health revenue surged more than 36% in the third quarter, nearly a year after acquiring one of the nation’s largest health insurers.

The drugstore chain and pharmacy benefit manager also said Wednesday that it filled more prescriptions as net income climbed 10% to $1.53 billion in a performance that topped analyst expectations.

The Woonsocket, Rhode Island, company runs more about 9,900 retail locations and processes over a billion prescriptions annually as a pharmacy benefit manager. Late last November, it added health insurance for more than 22 million people when it completed a roughly $69 billion acquisition of Aetna.

That deal helped push revenue to $64.81 billion, while adjusted earnings totaled $1.84 per share in the quarter.

Those results easily topped Wall Street’s expectations for earnings of $1.77 per share on $63.03 billion in revenue, according to Zacks Investment Research.

CVS Health also saw pharmacy claims climb in the third quarter more than 9% from its pharmacy benefit management side, which runs prescription drug plans for customers like insurers and employers.

The overall performance prompted CVS Health Corp. to raise its 2019 forecast again after starting the year with an outlook that disappointed Wall Street.

The company now expects 2019 earnings to range from $6.97 and $7.05 per share. That’s up from a forecast it made in August and higher than the average expectation on Wall Street for earnings of $6.98 per share, according to FactSet.

Company shares climbed 2 percent to $68.91 in premarket trading Wednesday.

That price had risen only about 3 percent so far this year as of Tuesday’s close while the broader Standard & Poor’s 500 index was up nearly 23 percent.