McKesson Corporation

McKesson Corporation is an American publicly traded company that distributes pharmaceuticals and provides health information technology, medical supplies, and health management tools. The company delivers a third of all pharmaceutical products used or consumed in North America and employs over 80,000 employees. With $308.9 billion in 2024 revenue, it is the ninth-largest company by revenue in the United States and the nation's largest health care company. The company is headquartered in Irving, Texas. It is a component of the S&P 500 and is listed on the New York Stock Exchange, where it is traded under the ticker symbol "MCK".
McKesson provides extensive network of infrastructure for the healthcare industry and was an early adopter of technologies, including barcode scanning for distribution, pharmacy robotics, and RFID tags. The company has been named in a federal lawsuit for profiting from the opioid epidemic in the United States.
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, McKesson was a key vaccine distributor, serving as the U.S. government's centralized distributor for hundreds of millions of COVID-19 vaccine doses and ancillary supply kits for over a billion doses.

History

19th century

McKesson was founded in 1828 in New York City as Charles M. Olcott by Charles M. Olcott. It was later renamed Olcott, McKesson & Co. and John McKesson in 1833, the business began as an importer and wholesaler of botanical drugs. A third partner, Daniel Robbins, who joined the enterprise as it grew, and who previously "was an assistant to the original partners", was the "Robbins" when the company was renamed McKesson & Robbins following Olcott's death in 1853.

20th century

In 1938, the company was involved in the McKesson and Robbins scandal under CEO Phillip Musica. It was one of the most notorious business and accounting scandals of the 20th century, a watershed event that led to major changes in American auditing standards and securities regulations after being exposed in 1938. It was found that one fourth of the $86,556,270 assets of the company was just figures recorded to keep McKesson looking profitable while Musica, who was posing as F. Donald Coster, and his brothers stole the funds. The company was able to weather the crisis after an equity receivership.
In 1967, Foremost Dairies, a company founded by James Cash Penney, which was headquartered in San Francisco since 1954, acquired McKesson & Robbins in a hostile takeover to form Foremost-McKesson Inc. The Foremost dairy operations were sold in 1982 and the name changed to McKesson Corporation but headquarters remained in San Francisco.
In 1999, McKesson acquired medical information systems firm HBO & Company. The combined firm operated as McKessonHBOC for two years. Accounting irregularities at HBOC reduced the company's share price by half and resulted in the dismissal and prosecution of many HBOC executives.

21st century

In 2001, the company's name reverted to McKesson. In the early 21st century, McKesson increased its market in medical technology through acquisitions, including Per Se Technologies and RelayHealth in 2006 and Practice Partner in 2007.
On January 6, 2006, McKesson acquired NDCHealth Corporation.
In 2010, McKesson acquired the oncology and physician services company US Oncology, Inc. for $2.16 billion, which was integrated into the McKesson Specialty Health business.
In April 2012, McKesson agreed to pay the United States $190M to settle allegations that it had inflated prices and overbilled Medicaid. Three months later, in July 2012, McKesson agreed to pay California and 28 other states $151M to settle allegations that it had inflated prices and overbilled Medicaid.
On June 24, 2013, The Wall Street Journal reported that McKesson Chairman and CEO John Hammergren's pension benefits of $159 million had set a record for "the largest pension on file for a current executive of a public company, and almost certainly the largest ever in corporate America".
In 2013, PSS World Medical was acquired.
In 2014, McKesson acquired Celesio to become one of the world's largest healthcare companies, with over $179 billion in annual revenue.
In June 2016, McKesson announced plans to merge its IT business with Change Healthcare.
In 2017, McKesson was involved in many lawsuits against the state of Arkansas over the supply of vecuronium bromide. McKesson was under contract by Pfizer not to sell to any correctional facility that authorized and carried out capital punishment.
In November 2018, the company announced it would relocate its headquarters from San Francisco to Irving, Texas, effective April 1, 2019.
Also in April 2019, Brian Tyler took over as CEO of the company.
In February 2020, McKesson Corp announced that it would part ways with Change Healthcare. McKesson gave up its ownership in the company and its three seats on the company's board of directors.
In February 2025, the McKesson Corporation signed a definitive agreement to acquire 80% interest in PRISM Vision Holdings.

Opioid epidemic

In 2008, McKesson paid $13 million in fines for failing to report large orders of hydrocodone. In January 2017, McKesson agreed to pay a $150 million civil penalty for alleged similar violations of the Controlled Substances Act regarding the distribution of opioids.
In January 2017, McKesson agreed to pay $150M to settle allegations that it had not done enough to track and stop suspicious opioid sales. The agreement also obligated McKesson to suspend all sales of controlled substances from its distribution centers in Colorado, Florida, Ohio, and Michigan for multiple years.
In May 2020, Attorney General of Oklahoma Michael J. Hunter sued McKesson in Bryan County District Court, alleging that the company's actions helped fuel Oklahoma's opioid crisis. The suit was filed along with lawsuits against Cardinal Health and AmerisourceBergen, and the three lawsuits allege that the three companies provided "enough opioids to Bryan County that every adult resident there could have had 144 hydrocodone tablets."
In January 2022, McKesson, AmerisourceBergen, Cardinal Health, and Johnson & Johnson agreed to pay $26 billion to settle with all but five of the states suing them. Had the states gone to court, the companies could have faced up to $95 billion in penalties.

COVID-19 pandemic

In August 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, the CDC and HHS selected McKesson as the U.S. government's centralized distributor for COVID-19 vaccine doses and ancillary supply kits under Operation Warp Speed. The company has played a key role in distributing the Moderna and Johnson & Johnson vaccines while also distributing ancillary supply kits for these as well as for the Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine across the U.S..

Finances

For the fiscal year 2023, McKesson reported earnings of US$3.56 billion on revenue of US$276.711 billion. As of 2023, McKesson was the nation's largest health care company and the ninth-largest company by total revenue on the Fortune 500.

Year	Revenue	Net income	Total assets	Price per share	Employees
2005	79,096	−157	18,775	36.41
2006	86,983	751	20,961	44.00
2007	92,977	913	23,943	51.66
2008	101,703	990	24,603	45.79
2009	106,632	823	25,267	43.23
2010	108,702	1,263	28,189	57.52	32,500
2011	112,084	1,202	30,886	71.40	32,500
2012	122,321	1,403	33,093	80.91	36,400
2013	122,196	1,338	34,786	113.59	43,500
2014	137,392	1,263	51,759	173.29	42,800
2015	179,045	1,476	53,870	198.26	70,400
2016	190,884	2,258	56,523	156.90	68,000
2017	198,533	5,070	60,969	141.87	78,000
2018	208,357	67	60,381	132.29	78,000
2019	214,319	34	59,672	127.96	80,000
2020	231,051	900	61,247	148.34	80,000
2021	238,228	−4,539	65,015	195.88	76,000
2022	263,966	1,114	63,298	325.94	75,000
2023	276,711	3,560	62,320	405.02	51,000

Divisions

McKesson Provider Technologies

McKesson Provider Technologies is the retail name for McKesson Technology Solutions; the software development division of McKesson. Their customer base in the United States includes 50% of all health systems, 20% of all physician practices, 25% of home care agencies, and 77% of health systems with more than 200 beds.
On June 20, 2005, McKesson Provider Technologies acquired Medcon, Ltd., an Israeli company which provides web-based cardiac image and information management solutions for heart centers, that includes: diagnostic digital image management, archiving, procedure reporting, and workflow management.
In October 2013, McKesson agreed to buy a 50% stake in Germany-based Celesio for $8.3 billion.

McKesson Medical Supplies and Equipment

McKesson Medical-Surgical offers a large selection of national healthcare brands, along with McKesson's exclusive brand of medical products.
Their online medical supply ordering platform serves the needs of physician offices, surgery centers, home health agencies, DMEs, labs, and long-term-care facilities.
In 2015, McKesson Medical-Surgical opened its new headquarters in Richmond, Virginia.