Avella Specialty Pharmacy Goes to OptumRx

Avella Specialty Pharmacy Goes to OptumRx

The auction for Riordan, Lewis & Haden’s portfolio company, Avella Specialty Pharmacy, was well under way back in February, according to industry sources. UnitedHealth Group’s (NYSE: UNH) Optum was reported to be in the lead, and then things went dark. It wasn’t until UnitedHealth Group’s third quarter earnings report was published on October 16 that the story ended. Some time in the third quarter, Optum acquired Avella and tucked it into its OptumRx pharmacy services subsidiary. The price wasn’t disclosed, but PEHub cited two sources saying the deal was valued at around $325 million. That’s pretty low, considering Avella’s previously disclosed... Read More »
Cigna Bids $67 Billion to Stay in the Race

Cigna Bids $67 Billion to Stay in the Race

Cigna (NYSE: CI) is buying Express Scripts Holdings (NYSE: ESRX) for $67 billion, including debt. Some company was going to buy it, we just weren’t sure who. The deal follows the announcement of the $77 billion CVS Health/Aetna (NYSE: CVS/AET) deal and the $4.9 billion Optum/DaVita Medical Group (NYSE: UNH/DVA) hook-up in December 2017. That’s when the word “disruption” became the top-ranked meme in U.S. healthcare. We’ll grant that CVS’s move into managed care signals a change in business-as-usual. But Optum’s deal for DaVita’s medical group didn’t break new ground. Optum has long been known as a voracious acquirer of physician... Read More »

What’s Next for Managed Care?

The managed care mega-deals of 2015 have blown up. Aetna (NYSE: AET) and Humana (NYSE: HUM) amicably terminated their $37 billion merger, following a federal judge’s order in January to block the deal on antitrust grounds. The $1 billion termination fee was in the works. A different federal judge blocked Anthem (NYSE: ANTM) and Cigna’s (NYSE: CI) $54.2 billion merger on similar grounds. Things turned ugly quickly, as Cigna declared the deal dead and sued Anthem for the $1.85 billion termination fee, and another $13 billion in damages on behalf of its shareholders. Anthem says it will go ahead with the merger. What do the Big Five health insurers do now that they’re... Read More »

March 2016’s Biggest Health Care Deals

Health care companies are still attracting buyers, and those in the services sectors seem to be the hottest. Last month saw healthy deal volume, at 134 transactions. For a year that started slowly for health care mergers and acquisitions, March 2016’s deal volume is only 3% lower than the same month a year ago. Industry sources have noted the dearth of deals across many industries going into March, even though some uncertainties that troubled markets earlier this year, such as China’s economic slow down, haven’t occupied center stage recently. Leverage is not an overwhelming concern, but credit has tightened over the past few months. And with the new, more onerous federal rules regarding... Read More »

CVS Wins Omnicare Auction

Omnicare Inc. (NYSE: OCR) put itself on the market in April, with bids due in May. At the time, its market value was estimated to be about $8.5 billion. CVS Health Corp. (NYSE: CVS), Express Scripts Holding Co. (NASDAQ: ESRX), McKesson Corp. (NYSE: MCK) and Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc. (NASDAQ: WBA) were expected to kick the tires. Last week, CVS won the deal with $12.7 billion, including $2.3 billion in debt. Omnicare’s big draw is its specialty pharmaceutical business focused on assisted living and long-term care facilities. The deal follows UnitedHealth Group’s (NYSE: UNH) $12.8 billion acquisition of pharmacy benefits manager Catamaran Corp. (NASDAQ: CTRX) in March and Rite Aid... Read More »