Last month, I asked Aetna financial officer Joseph Zubretsky if the company’s PBM was still for sale. His response was that despite the rumors, Aetna never confirmed it was shopping its PBM. But J.P. Morgan analyst Lisa Gill still thinks a sale makes sense and that Medco would be the most likely buyer. Gill puts the value at $1.6-2 billion, assuming Aetna’s PBM processes 107 million claims annually, has EBITDA per adjusted claim of $1.50, and sells at a 10% discount to WellPoint’s sale of its PBM to Express-Scripts. Gill adds, “The ultimate value of a transaction is likely to be highly dependent on the long-term PBM contract that would be entered into between the two parties.”
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