Bloomfield health insurer Cigna has completed its $67 billion acquisition of the nation’s largest pharmacy-benefit management company, Express Scripts.
Cigna said it closed the deal Thursday, more than nine months after Cigna CEO and President David Cordani and St. Louis-based Express Scripts CEO Tim Wentworth unveiled the combination.
The historic deal solidifies the trending reorganization and consolidation in the healthcare industry, where insurers and pharmacy-benefit managers are teaming to increase preventative care services and lower costs for customers. CVS Health in late November completed its $69 billion buyout of Aetna, Hartford’s 165-year-old health insurer.
Based in St. Louis, Mo., Express Scripts administers drug plans for patients with employer and government health insurance. Cigna on Thursday said it will leverage Express Scripts to add to its expanding care network, creating more “value-based relationships.”
“Together, we are establishing a blueprint for personalized, whole person health care, further enhancing our ability to put the customer at the center of all we do by creating a flexible, open and connected model that improves affordability, choice and predictability,” said Cordani.
It’s unclear how the deal may impact Cigna’s Bloomfield workforce. The insurer had 4,400 Connecticut employees as of Sept. 2018, according to Hartford Business Journal’s Book of Lists.
Meantime, Cigna’s C-suite roster will remain largely unchanged. Several key executives will retain their current posts, including Cordani, Chief Financial Officer Eric Palmer, Chief Marketing Officer Lisa Bacus and Matthew Manders, president of strategy and solutions.
Wentworth will lead the combined company’s health services business as president.
The deal’s nine-month approval process took several dramatic turns before its completion.
Before federal regulators approved the deal in September, Activist investor Carl Icahn tried to coerce investors to oppose the combination ahead of a shareholder vote in August. Sen. Chuck Grassley from Iowa, the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, also called on Justice Department antitrust enforcers to review the mergers involving both Cigna and Aetna, claiming they would limit market competition.
However, Cigna garnered 90 percent of shareholder support in late August, and went on to score approval from 29 state regulatory bodies.
