The health care sector rallied yesterday on another “Merger Monday” with the announcement of Sanofi's (SNY) purchase of Bioverativ (BIVV) for $11.6 billion, and Celgene's (CELG) $9 billion purchase of 90 percent of Juno Therapeutics (JUNO). But there's still one transformative merger that will define and reshape the U.S. health care market in 2018: the CVS/AETNA $69 billion deal announced last December.
CVS is best known for its 9,700 retail pharmacies and 1,100 walk-in clinics, but its most significant profit driver is its pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) enterprise—a middleman between pharmaceutical manufacturers and dispensers like drugstores. The company generated $177.5 billion in net revenue in 2016.
