CVS Health CEO: CVS-Aetna will achieve what Amazon, Berkshire and JPMorgan venture aspires to do

Ayla Ellison -

The new Amazon, JPMorgan Chase and Berkshire Hathaway venture hopes to accomplish what the CVS Health-Aetna combination will actually deliver, CVS Health President and CEO Larry Merlo said during a conference call Thursday to discuss the company's most recent financial results.

JPMorgan, Berkshire and Amazon announced the new healthcare venture Jan. 30. Although they provided few details, they said the new venture's main focus would be cutting healthcare costs for the three companies' U.S. employees.

On Thursday morning, Mr. Merlo fielded questions from analysts wanting to know his thoughts on the new venture.

He said CVS Health agrees with the goals the new venture has outlined so far, but he believes the entity formed through the combination of CVS Health and health insurer Aetna will be best suited to tackle the issues.

"What that group aspires to is what we're going to deliver as part of the CVS-Aetna combination," Mr. Merlo said. "Think about the fact that we have the infrastructure. We have the assets, we certainly have the healthcare expertise, resident in both companies, and we've demonstrated that we can execute on goals and objectives."

However, Mr. Merlo said CVS is open to partnering with the healthcare company Amazon, JPMorgan and Berkshire form.

"We want this new CVS-Aetna combination to be an open source model that as we build out these capabilities, we can make them broadly available in the market," he said. "So we're looking forward to partnering with all groups of individuals, including this new combination of Berkshire, JPMorgan, and Amazon."

CVS Health ended the fourth quarter of 2017 with net income of $3.3 billion on revenues of $48.4 billion. The financial boost was partially attributable to an income tax benefit of $1.5 billion. In the fourth quarter of 2016, CVS Health reported net income of $1.7 billion on revenues of $46 billion.

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