CVS Pharmacy Inc. is an American retail corporation. A subsidiary of CVS Health, it is headquartered in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Originally named the Consumer Value Stores, it was founded in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1963.
The chain was owned by its original holding company Melville Corporation from its inception until its current parent company, CVS Health, was spun off into its own company in 1996. CVS Pharmacy is currently the largest pharmacy chain in the United States by number of locations, of which it had over 9,600 as of 2016, and total prescription revenue. Its parent company ranks as the fifth largest American corporation by FY2020 revenues in the Fortune 500. The parent company of CVS Pharmacy's leading competitor, Walgreens, ranked 19th over the same time period. CVS sells prescription drugs and a wide assortment of general merchandise, including over-the-counter drugs, beauty products and cosmetics, film and photo finishing services, seasonal merchandise, greeting cards, and convenience foods through their CVS Pharmacy and Longs Drugs retail stores and online through CVS.com. It also provides healthcare services through its more than 1,100 MinuteClinic medical clinics, as well as their Diabetes Care Centers. Most of these clinics are located within or outside CVS stores.
Overview
CVS Pharmacy used to be a subsidiary of Melville Corporation, where its full name was initially as Consumer Value Stores. Melville changed its name to CVS Corporation in 1996 after Melville sold off many of its stores other than its pharmacies. The last of those operations were sold in 1997.
Former CEO Tom Ryan has said he considers "CVS" to stand for "Customer, Value, and Service".
During the company's days as a regional chain in the Northeast, many CVS stores did not include pharmacies. Today, the company seldom builds new stores without pharmacies and outside of New England is gradually phasing out any such shops. Any new non-pharmacy store is usually built in a more urban setting where another CVS with a pharmacy exists within walking distance such as downtown Boston, Massachusetts, or Providence, Rhode Island. These stores usually lack a pharmacy and a photo center but carry most of the general merchandise items that a normal CVS Pharmacy carries such as health and beauty items, sundries, and food items.
On October 18, 2024, David Joyner, who previously oversaw Caremark, replaced Karen Lynch as CEO.
Rewards program In 2013, CVS introduced a program that rewarded customers up to $50 per year in ExtraCare Bucks, a store credit system, that customers can use for purchasing additional items in store in exchange for filling their prescriptions. In order to enroll in the program, customers had to sign a HIPAA waiver acknowledging that their provided information may be disclosed further. Stores had to fulfill a quota of a number of customers in the program each week. Walgreens also offers rewards for filling prescriptions, although it does not require a signed HIPAA waiver.
Online The domain CVS.com attracted at least 26million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com survey.
By 2004, all CVS stores were able to receive electronic prescriptions.
History 20th century
The name "CVS" was used for the first time in 1964. That year, they had 17 retail locations, and 40 stores five years later.
In 1967, CVS began operation of its first stores with pharmacy departments, opening locations in Warwick and Cumberland, Rhode Island. CVS was acquired by the now-defunct Melville Corporation in 1969, boosting its growth.
As of 1970, CVS operated 100 stores in New England and the Northeast U.S.
In early 1972, CVS introduced America's first refillable plastic bottle with its CVS private-label shampoo. Customers paid 79¢ for a bottle of CVS private-label shampoo and when they returned the empty bottle and cap, could buy another bottle of the same shampoo for 69¢ (a 10¢ saving). This practice created a cause-related repeat-purchase cycle, wherein the customer saved 10¢ as they bought another bottle of CVS shampoo and avoided using (and CVS producing) a new plastic bottle. Each initial PVC bottle, flip-top cap and label cost CVS 11.5¢, so the process paid for itself and reduced plastic bottle pollution.
In 1972, CVS acquired 84 Clinton Drug and Discount Stores, which introduced CVS to Indiana and the Midwest. By 1974, CVS had 232 stores and sales of $100million. In 1977, CVS acquired the 36-store New Jersey–based Mack Drug chain.
The chain had more than 400 stores by 1981. Sales reached $1billion in 1985, partly due to the pharmacies being added to many of CVS's older stores.
In 1980, CVS became the 15th-largest pharmacy chain in the U.S., with 408 stores and $414million in sales. In 1988 CVS celebrated its 25th anniversary, finishing the year with nearly 750 stores and sales of about $1.6billion.
In 1990, CVS acquired the 490-store Peoples Drug chain from Imasco, which established the company in new mid-Atlantic markets including Washington, D.C., Pennsylvania, Maryland, and Virginia. In 1994, CVS started PharmaCare Management Services. The parent company decided to focus on CVS in 1995, selling off Marshalls and This End Up. The following year, they let go of Footaction/Footstar, Meldisco, Linens 'n Things, and KB Toys. The company, then decided to change its name from Melville Corporation to CVS Corporation. In 1997, Bob's Stores were also sold, and CVS nearly tripled its 1,400 stores after purchasing the 2,500-store Revco chain (Revco had acquired Hook's Drug Stores, some of the original Hook's Drug Stores still operate under CVS brand and CVS operates digital pharmacy company as Hook SupeRx LLC.). CVS bought 200 Arbor Drugs locations in 1998, opened approximately 180 new stores, closed about 160 stores, and relocated nearly 200 existing stores from strip malls to freestanding locations. In 1999, CVS acquired Soma.com, the first online pharmacy, and renamed it CVS.com. The same year, CVS launched their CVS ProCare Pharmacy for complex drug therapies.
In 1990, CVS bought the 23-store Rix Dunnington chain. In 1993, CVS withdrew from the southern California market. Formerly traded as MVL on the New York Stock Exchange, the company now trades as CVS.
21st century
As of December 2009, CVS Caremark had over 7,000 locations.
In 2004, CVS purchased 1,268 Eckerd drug stores and Eckerd Health Services, a PBM/mail-order pharmacy business, from JCPenney. Because JCPenney credit cards were accepted at Eckerd locations, CVS continued to accept them until July 2014.
On January 23, 2006, CVS announced that it had agreed to acquire the freestanding drug store operations of supermarket chain Albertsons. The deal included the acquisition of 700 drug stores trading under the Osco Drug and Sav-On Drugs banners, mostly in the midwestern and southwestern United States (with a concentration of stores in southern California and the Chicago area), and was formally completed on June 2, 2006. Transition of Sav-On and Osco stores to the CVS brand was completed by December 2006. CVS now dominates the southern California market. Also included were Albertsons Health'n'Home (now CVS Home Health) durable medical equipment stores. Approximately 28 CVS Home Health locations are present in Arizona, California, and the Kansas City area, representing CVS's first venture into the specialized DME market. As a result of their acquisition of Sav-On through Albertsons, CVS regained ownership of multiple Southern Californian stores they had previously owned, but had sold to Sav-On's former parent company American Stores in 1993.
On July 13, 2006, CVS announced that it had entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Minneapolis-based MinuteClinic, the pioneer and largest provider of retail-based health clinics in the U.S. MinuteClinic operates as a wholly owned subsidiary of CVS Corporation. MinuteClinic health care centers are staffed by board-certified nurse practitioners and physician assistants who are trained to diagnose and treat common family illnesses such as throat, ear, eye, sinus, bladder, and bronchial infections, and provide prescriptions when clinically appropriate. MinuteClinic also offers common vaccinations, such as flu shots, tetanus, and Hepatitis A & B. The clinics are supported by physicians who collaborate with the staff. There are over 550 locations across the United States, most of which are within CVS Pharmacy locations.
On November 1, 2006, CVS announced that it was entering into a purchase agreement with Nashville-based Caremark Rx Inc., a pharmacy benefits manager. The new company is called CVS Caremark Corporation and the corporate headquarters remains in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. The new pharmacy services business, including the combined pharmacy benefits management (PBM), specialty pharmacy, and disease management businesses, is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee. The new CVS Caremark Corporation is expected to achieve about $75billion in yearly revenue for 2007. The merger was formally completed on March 22, 2007. Tom Ryan, CVS's Chairman and CEO, remains president and CEO of the combined company, while Caremark's president and CEO, Mac Crawford, is chairman of the board.
On November 7, 2007, Mac Crawford stepped down as chairman of the board for CVS Caremark. He was replaced by president and CEO of CVS Caremark, Tom Ryan.
On August 12, 2008, CVS Pharmacy announced that it would acquire Longs Drugs for $2.9billion. Walgreens made a counteroffer but dropped it. The deal closed October 30, 2008. Longs Drugs stores outside Hawaii were rebranded to CVS Pharmacy by the summer of 2009.
In 2012, CVS Caremark received 59 percent of Rhode Island's tax credits.
On July 14, 2014, it was announced that CVS Caremark would acquire the Miami-based Navarro Discount Pharmacies; the 33 stores would remain untouched and stay under the Navarro name.
On September 3, 2014, CVS Caremark changed its name to CVS Health and announced that it would stop selling tobacco products.
On October 25, 2014, CVS Health disabled near field communication NFC payments, disallowing customers from using Apple Pay or Google Wallet payment methods. A reason was not immediately given. Analysts suggested that it was a way to favor the MCX system, which was still under development, and of which CVS was a founding member. They eventually re-enabled NFC on their registers after the MCX system failed to take off.
In 2015, CVS Pharmacy opened a subsidiary pharmaceutical chain, known as CVS Pharmacy y más, specifically aimed at attracting Hispanic shoppers. The first stores were launched in Florida and have since expanded to California, Puerto Rico, Texas, and New Jersey.
On May 21, 2015, it was announced that CVS Health would acquire Omnicare, Inc. the leading provider of pharmacy services to long-term care facilities, for $98.00 per share in cash, for a total enterprise value of approximately $12.7billion, which includes approximately $2.3billion in debt. The transaction was expected to close near the end of 2015.
On June 15, 2015, CVS Health announced its agreement to acquire Target Corporation's pharmacy and retail clinic businesses. The deal expanded CVS to new markets in Seattle, Denver, Portland and Salt Lake City. The acquisition included more than 1,660 pharmacies in 47 states. CVS would operate them through a store-within-a-store format. Target's nearly 80 clinic locations were rebranded as MinuteClinic, and CVS planned to open up to 20 new clinics in their stores within three years. CVS started rebranding the pharmacies within the Target stores on February 3, 2016.
In December 2017, CVS Health announced a deal to acquire Aetna. On October 10, 2018, CVS Health received approval from the United States Department of Justice to acquire Aetna, for $69billion.
CVS announced it would close 46 "underperforming stores" in 2019, and a further 22 in 2020, without disclosing their locations.