From ABC News:

Drugstore operator CVS Corp. announced Wednesday it is buying pharmacy benefits manager Caremark Rx Inc. for about $21.3 billion in stock.

The deal, which the companies described as a “merger of equals,” would create a drug benefit manager that can take on retail leader Wal-Mart’s growing presence in generic drug sales, analysts said.

On first blush (and it deserves more thought than this) I see this as a positive development for people and companies covered by or contracted with Caremark, because it merges the storefront delivery of medications with the back-end insured piece, which at the very least should streamline some of the issues with regard to cost and coverage.

It deserves more thought and analysis than I’ve got to give it right now. It seems like a good thing for consumers and certainly puts another pharmacy on competing terms with Wal-Mart, which should be good for pricing, too.

Of course, the pricing issues also rest with the manufacturers, too.

[disclosure: Caremark is my PBM; CVS is where I fill the majority of my prescriptions]

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