‘Big Three’ PBMs Have Another Good Quarter, but Execs Are on Defense

  • Aug 08, 2024

    Amid a summertime resurgence of ire directed at major PBMs, CVS Health Corp., The Cigna Group and UnitedHealth Group during their recent earnings calls each took the opportunity to defend their pharmacy benefits businesses and tout their new, more transparent offerings. 

    When reporting CVS’s second-quarter financial results on Aug. 7, CEO Karen Lynch opened her prepared remarks with the bad news first, revealing that the continued struggles of the firm’s health benefits division led her to cut its 2024 earnings forecast and fire Aetna President Brian Kane. But she then sang the praises of CVS Caremark — as well as hit back at major PBMs’ critics. 

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  • Leslie Small

    Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.

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