CVS

WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS/pharmacy's ExtraCare Rewards program now enables ExtraCare cardholders to send their quarterly ExtraBucks Rewards to their ExtraCare cards, eliminating the need for shoppers to carry paper rewards into their local CVS/pharmacy.

WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS Caremark announced on Thursday that the Federal Trade Commission has concluded its investigation into the company’s business practices.

WASHINGTON — CVS Caremark's chief healthcare strategy officer on Tuesday outlined how the company's integrated pharmacy-based program for such chronic diseases as diabetes, called Pharmacy Advisor, increased medication adherence rates and physician initiation of prescriptions for concomitant medications to improve patient health.

LOS ANGELES and WOONSOCKET, R.I. — CVS Caremark has entered into a definitive agreement to purchase the stand-alone Medicare Part D prescription drug plan business from Health Net for approximately $160 million in cash.

The transaction is anticipated to close in the second quarter of 2012, subject to customary closing conditions and applicable regulatory approvals, including approval from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

WOONSOCKET, R.I. — A CVS Caremark study found that the company's integrated pharmacy-based program — Pharmacy Advisor — increased medication adherence rates and physician initiation of prescriptions for concomitant medications, improving care for diabetes patients and resulting in savings for health plans, the company announced on Monday.

NEW YORK — Wall Street calls for the breakup of CVS Caremark? Nope, not so fast.

About a year after analysts called for the split of CVS Caremark's PBM business, they now are changing their tune on the heels of the company's 2011 Analyst Day presentation on Dec. 20.

In fact, shares of CVS Caremark ended 2011 up 17% and, as Dow Jones Newswires reported, is trading at a roughly 3-and-a-half-year high.

ATLANTA — Hair accessory brand Goody has announced the launch of its DoubleWear collection of jewelry-inspired elastics and headwraps.

A recent Goody poll reported that most women wear an elastic on their wrist as a convenient way to keep it handy, but 68% of respondents said they were frustrated with how this look compromised their style. Enter DoubleWear.

MINNEAPOLIS — Despite an overall decrease in free standing insert coupon activity, retailer promotion pages within the FSI vehicles recorded a 30.7% increase to more than 17 billion pages in 2011, continuing the significant annual increases in retailer promotion activity, which began in 2007, Kantar Media reported Wednesday.

Overall, the number of free-standing insert coupons distributed through 2011 dropped 6.5% compared with 2010. This decline in FSI coupon activity followed two consecutive years of annual increases of 8% in 2009 and 7.2% in 2010.