CVS Plans to Split Into Separate Insurance and Pharmacy Companies by 2028, Sending Shares Down Nearly 13 Percent, While an Independent Pharmacy Group Welcomes It, Fox Business Reports
Fox Business says CVS will separate Aetna and its pharmacy benefit manager from roughly 9,000 retail stores. The National Community Pharmacists Association says it could mean more competition and lower prices, but warns of more store closures.
One of the country's biggest health companies plans to break itself in two, Fox Business reports.
The plan. CVS Health said Wednesday it will split into two separate, publicly traded companies by the first half of 2028. One, which will temporarily keep the CVS Health name, would hold the pharmacy benefit manager, the insurance plans and subsidiaries including Aetna, CVS Caremark, CVS Specialty, Oak Street Health and Signify Health. The other, CVS Pharmacy, would hold about 9,000 stores, the mail-order pharmacy, MinuteClinic and the Health100 technology unit. Fox says current investors will get shares in both tax-free.
The market. Fox says the news sent CVS shares down nearly 13 percent Wednesday, to levels not seen since spring.
The company's reason. Fox quotes CVS saying the change lets it "evolve into two companies with greater focus and more value for stakeholders."
Independent pharmacies. Douglas Hoey of the National Community Pharmacists Association, which represents thousands of independent pharmacies, told Fox Business the split could be "good for competition, good for patients, lower prices." He argued that CVS is both a competitor and the party that sets how much rival pharmacies are paid and where patients can fill prescriptions. He said only about a third of U.S. pharmacies are now independently owned.
The warnings. Hoey said a standalone CVS Pharmacy may look harder at weak stores. CVS has closed roughly 10 percent of its locations over five years, he noted, though many CVS stores sit near other pharmacies. He also said CVS Specialty, which handles high-cost drugs for cancer and multiple sclerosis and GLP-1 drugs such as Ozempic, stays on the insurance side. That keeps conflict concerns about steering patients and rebates alive, he argued. He said more detail on regulation is needed.
The regulatory backdrop. Hoey said the split may also help CVS get ahead of scrutiny of vertical integration. Fox says Arkansas and Tennessee passed laws in 2025 and 2026 that bar benefit managers from owning retail pharmacies, and both face federal legal challenges. CVS argued in its Tennessee case that benefit managers there already follow rules requiring fair reimbursement.
What we could not check. Most of the analysis comes from one trade group with a stake in the outcome. Fox's report says CVS made its statement Tuesday and announced the plan Wednesday, and we did not resolve that difference. CVS did not respond to Fox's request for comment. We have not read the company's filing.