(Bloomberg) -- UnitedHealth Group Inc. agreed to buy Catamaran Corp. for about $12.8 billion, bulking up its drug-benefits business to get better negotiating power in talks with pharmaceutical companies over prices.
UnitedHealth will pay $61.50 a share, financing the acquisition with cash and debt, the companies said in a statement. The offer, which would be UnitedHealth’s largest purchase ever, is 27 percent more than Catamaran’s closing share price of $48.32 on Friday.
Companies that provide health insurance to their employees are becoming more reliant on drug-benefit managers to help rein in the rising cost of medications. Express Scripts Holding Co., the biggest in the industry, successfully led a campaign last year to push for discounts on $1,000-a-day treatments for hepatitis C from drugmakers Gilead Sciences Inc. and AbbVie Inc.
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