CVS Health
CVS Health Corporation is an American multinational healthcare company that owns CVS Pharmacy, a retail pharmacy chain; CVS Caremark, a pharmacy benefits manager; and Aetna, a health insurance provider, among many other brands. The company is the world's second largest healthcare company, behind UnitedHealth Group. In 2023, the company was ranked 64th in the Forbes Global 2000. CVS started in Lowell, Massachusetts by brothers Stanley and Sidney Goldstein and their partner Ralph Hoagland. The name stood for Consumer Value Stores.
History
1960s
The first Consumer Value Store, selling health and beauty products, was founded in 1963, in Lowell, Massachusetts, by brothers Stanley and Sidney Goldstein and Ralph Hoagland. By 1964, CVS had 17 stores that sold primarily beauty products. In 1967, CVS opened its first stores with pharmacy departments in Warwick, Rhode Island, and Cumberland, Rhode Island. CVS was sold to Melville Corporation in 1969.1970s
By 1970, CVS was operating 100 stores in New England and the Northeast. In 1972, CVS acquired 84 Clinton Drug and Discount Stores. This purchase introduced CVS to the Midwest with stores in Indiana. During 1977, CVS acquired 36 New Jersey–based Mack Drug stores.1980s
In 1983, CVS began providing home health care for hemophilia. The company acquired Heartland Drug in 1988, a small pharmacy company in the Boston area giving it stores in the Boston metro including Watertown Square and Harvard Square.1990s
CVS acquired 500 Peoples Drug stores in 1990, establishing the company in new mid-Atlantic markets including Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Maryland and Virginia. In 1994, it launched PharmaCare, a pharmacy benefit management company. CVS became a standalone company trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the "CVS" ticker in 1996. Stanley Goldstein was the company's first chairman. CVS acquired over 2,500 Revco drug stores, establishing the company in additional Midwestern, Southeastern and Eastern states in 1997.In 1998, the company acquired 207 stores from Arbor Drugs, giving CVS its first stores in Michigan. A year later, CVS acquired Soma.com, the first online pharmacy, and renamed it CVS.com to become the first fully integrated online and brick-and-mortar pharmacy offering to consumers.
2000s
In 2000, CVS acquired Stadtlander pharmacy from Bergen Brunswig Corporation, making CVS ProCare the largest specialty pharmacy in the U.S. at the time. In 2001, CVS launched the ExtraCare loyalty card program. Within a year, 30million customers enrolled to earn rewards and receive discounts. CVS purchased 1,268 Eckerd drug stores and Eckerd Health Services, Eckerd's PBM/Mail-order pharmacy business, from JCPenney in 2004. The purchase expanded the company's footprint in Texas, Florida and other southern states.2006 saw CVS acquiring 700 freestanding drug store operations of supermarket chain Albertsons, including stores trading under the Osco Drug and Sav-On Drugs banners. That same year, it acquired Minneapolis-based MinuteClinic. CVS Corporation and Caremark Rx, Inc. completed their transformative merger in 2007, creating CVS Caremark, an integrated pharmacy services provider, and the corporate headquarters remained in Woonsocket, RI. Tom Ryan, the chairman and CEO of CVS remained president and CEO of CVS Caremark Corporation, while Caremark's Edwin Crawford became the chairman of the board. CVS Caremark acquired 541 stores from Longs Drugs Stores Corp in California, Hawaii, and Nevada in 2008.
2010s
2011 saw Larry Merlo succeeding Tom Ryan as president and CEO of CVS Caremark. Merlo joined CVS/pharmacy in 1990, through the acquisition of Peoples Drug. On September 3, 2014, it was announced that CVS, as of midnight Tuesday September 2, 2014, would no longer sell tobacco products at all of its 7,700 locations nationwide, a month earlier than planned. It also announced it would change its corporate name to CVS Health to reflect "its broader health care commitment" and a desire to change the future health of Americans, although all retail stores would continue to be called "CVS/pharmacy", unless they did not contain a pharmacy, in which case they are just signed CVS. CVS Caremark acquired Coram in 2014, the specialty infusion services and enteral nutrition business unit of Apria Healthcare Group Inc. That same year, the company acquired 33 Miami-based Navarro Discount Pharmacy stores, the largest Hispanic-owned drugstore chain the United States. A year later in 2015, it acquired Omnicare, provider of pharmacy services to long-term care facilities. CVS Health acquired Target's 1,600+ pharmacies and retail medical clinics inside Target stores that same year. CVS has begun operating them through a store-within-a-store format.CVS announced they would be installing 25 vending machines in high traffic areas like, bus terminals, airports, and college campuses in 2017. The first kiosks will be located in LaGuardia Airport and Boston's South Station Bus Terminal and will carry personal items such as toothpaste, deodorant, batteries, and healthy snack foods. In December, CVS announced they agreed to buy health insurer Aetna for about $207 per share, broken down into $145 in cash and the rest in stock, in December 2017. If approved, it would allow CVS to provide a broad range of health services to Aetna's 22million medical members. On December 5, 2017, The Wall Street Journal reported that there was still a $69billion deal pending between CVS and Aetna, so long as it received government approval. CVS CEO Larry Merlo had been named to run the combined company. In November 2018, CEO Larry Merlo told USA Today that the drugstore chain plans to renovate its stores to focus more on health care and less on retail following its merger with the health insurance company Aetna. The new strategy is to offer medical services along with prescription drugs, among other products. On June 4, 2019, USA Today reported on the planned expansion of a CVS Health store concept called HealthHUB to 1,500 locations by the end of 2021. The concept, launched in the Houston area in early 2019, realigns CVS retail outlets with a stronger focus on health care services. HealthHUB stores dedicate at least 20% of their floor space to health care services such as yoga classes and enlarged Minute Clinic spaces to offer more health assessments. To accommodate HealthHUB, CVS locations will reduce the floor space currently devoted to slower-selling merchandise, such as greeting cards. The store conversions to the HealthHUB format was paused in March 2020, due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
2020s
In February 2020, CVS announced changes to its board of directors, whose size was reduced from 16 to 13 directors. On November 18, 2021, the company announced that it plans to close 900 stores nationwide over the next three years because of what executives described as changes in consumer shopping behavior, population, and the future of health care needs. The closures would represent approximately 10 percent of stores in the US. On November 23, 2021, federal jury found that CVS, along with Walgreens and Walmart, "had substantially contributed to" the opioid crisis.On December 2, 2021, CVS announced a strategic partnership with Microsoft to improve personalized care and digital health. In September 2022, CVS Health announced that it reached an agreement to buy at-home health company Signify Health for roughly $8 billion. It came one month after it announced a plan to move into primary care by the end of the year. On February 8, 2023, the company announced it has entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Oak Street Health in an all-cash transaction at $39 per share, representing an enterprise value of approximately $10.6 billion. The merger was completed in May 2023.