COVID-19 vaccines, prescriptions fuel strong quarter at CVS

• Published date: 09 February 2022
• Publication title: The China Post

COVID-19 vaccines and the return of customers to stores to pick up prescriptions helped push CVS Health well past fourth-quarter earnings expectations.

COVID-19 vaccines and customers returning for prescriptions helped push CVS Health well past fourth-quarter earnings expectations.

But the drugstore chain and pharmacy benefits manager did not raise the 2022 forecast it laid out in December, and shares slid in early-morning trading Wednesday.

Profit at the Woonsocket, Rhode Island, company jumped 33% to nearly $1.3 billion in the final quarter of 2021.

CVS Health said its pharmacy benefits management business - which runs prescription drug plans for large employers and other big clients - processed more pharmacy claims due partly to COVID-19 vaccinations and an increase in new prescriptions compared to the final quarter of 2020.

Vaccines had just started rolling out at the end of 2020, and many people were still staying home and trying to avoid the virus by staying away from doctor's offices that generate those prescriptions.

In the...