"Per led Merck-Medco's transformation into a leader in Internet health care, " Merck Chairman Raymond V.
The company's Merck-Medco division is the largest provider of pharmacy services--filling prescriptions and running benefits plans.
Express Scripts ( ESRX) and Medco Health Solutions ( MHS) are two great examples.
Medco is not in this business, a fact that could further crimp its earnings.
Lofberg is leaving his job as chairman of Merck-Medco to head the new venture fund, effective yesterday.
More than half of mail order is controlled by three PBMs: Express Scripts, Medco Health Solutions and Caremark.
At that point she stopped working as Group President of Medco Health Solutions to care for him.
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But Merck-Medco's margins remained paper-thin even as its revenues grew 12-fold, crimping the margins of the entire company.
The few health care properties that sell at premiums are mid-teens growers like Celgene, Gilead, Express Scripts and Medco.
Medco did not even suggest a fee if the FTC rejected the deal.
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That means that the accounting irregularity did not boost Medco's earnings and instead caused its margins to look thinner.
In the meantime, Merck has yet to spin off its Medco pharmacy-benefits business, a move originally planned for last summer.
In a suit the Justice Department accuses Medco, among other things, of favoring drugs made by its former parent, Merck.
Merck is spinning off Medco because the unit's margins are too low (see "Merck Decides To Go It Alone").
Pfizer is also offering Lipitor for a generic price to big firms such as Medco, which manage health schemes' prescription costs.
With the Medco acquisition, the space is essentially a duopoly and we think that both companies are posed to do well.
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Merck is being accused of playing games with its books based on an accounting strategy used by its Merck-Medco pharmacy benefits arm.
Adding to the skepticism: This summer, Merck had to shelve a public offering of its Merck-Medco division, which has been a drag on its earnings.
The firm was founded in 2008 by former top executives from Medco, a giant company that manages pharmacy benefits for health insurers and employers.
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Some had hoped that Merck would use the proceeds from a Medco spinoff to purchase new drugs, either buying entire companies or specific compounds.
Merck's brass may feel that the last thing they need is the low-margin blob of Merck-Medco floating over their shoulders, distracting them from drugmaking.
First, he expects that Merck will finally complete a long-planned spinoff of its pharmacy benefits unit, Medco, this summer, eliminating a drag on its stock.
We like the company because their recent acquisition of Medco means they can control reimbursement payments to retail pharmacies more completely and negotiate down their costs.
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It thought it could use Medco, which is hired by managed-care firms to fulfill drug purchases for patients, to increase the sales of its own drugs.
Later this year, Merck expects to refile Arcoxia in the U.S. and either spin off or do an initial public offering for its pharmacy-benefits manager unit, Medco.
The world's third-biggest drugmaker is casting off its pharmacy benefits management arm, Merck-Medco , which accounts for 55% of its sales, as a separate publicly traded company.
Express Scripts (ESRX): This pharmacy benefits manager, which merged with Medco this year, manages more than a billion prescriptions per year for tens of millions of customers.
Apparently, Merck-Medco accounted for sales in a way that booked co-payments that consumers pay to pharmacies as revenue for Merck, and then booked an equivalent amount as costs.
Medco officials went to Express Scripts and made a pitch.
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Now, interestingly enough, Express Scripts is buying Medco Health Solutions.
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