CVS Q3 revenue up 10%

Woonsocket, R.I.-- CVS Health Corp. on Tuesday reported slightly higher-than-expected quarterly profit, helped in part by growth in sales of specialty drugs. Net income decreased 24% to $900 million from $1.21 billion in the year-ago period, primarily due to a $521 million pre-tax loss on the early extinguishment of debt.



Revenue rose 9.7% to $35 billion, led by strong sales of specialty drugs in the pharmacy benefits business. Same-store sales rose 2%. Pharmacy same-store sales grew 4.8%, while front store same store sales declined 4.5%. Retail pharmacy same store prescription volumes rose 5.1% on a 30-day equivalent basis.



"I'm very pleased with our strong results in the third quarter, which reflect better-than-expected revenue growth across the enterprise and expanding retail gross margins,” said Larry Merlo, president and CEO. “The 2015 pharmacy benefits management selling season continued to be highly successful with a significant number of new business wins across all lines of business. We also continued to deliver substantial free cash flow, enabling us to return more than $3.7 billion to our shareholders year to date. We are well on track to return more than $5 billion to our shareholders through dividends and share repurchases for the full year 2014."



During the three months ended Sept. 30, CVS Health opened 45 new and acquired 33 retail drugstores, and closed four retail drugstores. In addition, the company relocated 13 retail drugstores.



As of Sept. 30, the company operated 7,935 locations in 47 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and Brazil. These locations included 7,779 retail drugstores, 936 health care clinics, 17 onsite pharmacies, 26 retail specialty pharmacy stores, 11 specialty mail order pharmacies, four mail service dispensing pharmacies, and 84 branches and six centers of excellence for infusion and enteral services.