CVS CVS Health Corporation

By Imani Moise 

CVS Health Corp. reported better-than-expected earnings in its fourth quarter, helped by growth in its pharmacy services segment.

Shares rose 1.9% to $78.50 during premarket trading Thursday.

The pharmacy operator also forecast adjusted first-quarter earnings of $1.07 to $1.13 a share, in line with analysts' expectations of $1.11 a share, according to Thomson Reuters.

Sales in the pharmacy services segment increased 18% to $31.3 billion, driven by a 24% jump in pharmacy network claims. Sales in CVS's retail segment, meanwhile, rose 4.7% to $20.8 billion.

Reduced traffic caused same-store sales to decline 0.7% compared with a year earlier, while pharmacy same-store sales rose 0.2%, partially offset by recent generic drug introductions hurting sales.

Over all CVS reported a profit of $1.71 billion, or $1.59 a share, up from $1.5 billion, or $1.34, a year earlier. Excluding items such as acquisition-related costs, earnings rose to $1.71 a share from $1.53. Revenue jumped 12% to $45.97 billion.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters had forecast earnings of $1.67 on $46.5 billion in revenue.

Write to Imani Moise at imani.moise@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 09, 2017 08:13 ET (13:13 GMT)

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