COLUMBIA: Announces Sale Of ValueRx Unit
Columbia/HCA Healthcare Corp. this morning announced a final agreement to sell its ValueRx pharmacy benefit management unit to Express Scripts, Inc. of St. Louis for about $445 million in cash. ValueRx is a subsidiary of Value Health, Inc., which Columbia acquired last year. Express Scripts is the third largest independent pharmacy benefit management company in the country, providing service to approximately 12.3 million members in the United States and Canada. The transaction should be completed in the second quarter of 1998, pending regulatory approval. Columbia announced its intention to spin off three of the four divisions of Value Health in the wake of a federal probe into the hospital chain's business practices. An agreement to sell Value Behavioral Health to FHC Health Systems, Inc. was signed late last month (release, 2/20).
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