Dive Brief:
- Cigna is rebranding its growing health services business, including pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts, as Evernorth, the Connecticut-based payer announced Wednesday.
- The new umbrella brand will encompass Express Scripts, specialty pharmacy Accredo, medical benefit manager Evicore and Cigna's other health service product lines, beginning in the third quarter.
- The rebranding, which had been in the works for months pre-pandemic, is the next step in tying together Cigna and Express Scripts, which merged in late 2018.
Dive Insight:
Healthcare companies are diversifying to ensure more stable revenue streams. With the rebranding, Cigna is banking on positioning its disparate health services as a unified business and brand.
The payer has a significant footprint to capitalize on, with more than 185 million global customer relationships. Cigna is the third-largest commercial health insurer in the U.S. with annual revenue of $154 billion in 2019, just trailing CVS Health and UnitedHealth Group.
Evernorth will sell health services geared toward other payers, employers and government businesses, including those without Cigna medical insurance.
Cigna will continue to market all brands currently within its health services segment. However, several existing and new products will be branded Evernorth at launch, including Healthy Ways to Work, a return-to-work program for health plans and employers; fertility program FamilyPath; Embarc Benefit Protection, with connects patients with gene therapies; and mental health platform inMynd.
Embarc and inMynd are existing products, while Cigna began quietly offering Healthy Ways to Work to clients earlier in the pandemic and FamilyPath is new. More products are expected in the coming months.
Many other health services companies' business is primarily focused on its parent company. Evernorth, however, gets only about 10% of its business from Cigna, and the remaining 90% from external clients. The division hopes to build on existing partnerships, which include millennial-focused payer Oscar Health, PBM Prime Therapeutics and A.I.-enabled digital assistant Buoy Health.
The extensive rebranding is the first project that's rolling out under Cigna's new Chief Marketing Officer Kristen Lauria, who joined about six months ago.
Tim Wentworth, current CEO of Express Scripts and Cigna's other health service lines, will stay on as top executive. The rebranding doesn't include any major immediate internal changes or reorganizing.
Like other major U.S. payers, Cigna reported a jump in its second quarter profit as patients deferred non-emergency healthcare amid the pandemic. Cigna saw net income of $1.75 billion, up almost a fourth compared to the same time last year.
The health services segment reported more modest earnings growth, up 7% year over year, driven by higher script volumes, favorable impacts from supply chain initiatives and strong specialty performance in Accredo.