CVS Health Corp. said earnings and sales this year will be at the high end of its forecast and announced plans to buy back $10 billion worth of shares as it prepares for further expansion into primary care, encouraged by success with kidney patients.

Revenue will be at least $290 billion and adjusted earnings per share will reach or exceed $8 in the current fiscal year, the company said in a statement ahead of its investor day event. CVS also said it plans to increase its yearly dividend by 10%.

The owner of CVS pharmacies and Aetna health insurance said it will work to make health care more convenient, personalized and affordable for consumers. The company last month said it would close 300 stores a year over the next three years and take a charge of as much as $1.2 billion, part of a plan to decrease its store density in some areas.

Company executives plan to provide further details on its accelerating push into primary care at an investor day on Thursday, CVS pharmacy-benefits executive Alan Lotvin said in an interview. After positive early results in caring for patients with kidney disease, the pharmacy giant is continuing to look for new therapeutic areas enter and ways to grow beyond drugstores that are seeing diminished traffic.

The shares gained 36% this year through Wednesday's close.

Shifting into more areas of patient care could help better insulate CVS from competitive pressure in retail, where companies like Amazon.com Inc. are increasingly drawing away drugstore customers. Still, muscular competitors loom elsewhere: Rival insurer UnitedHealth Group Inc. has been expanding its primary-care business, and dialysis is dominated by entrenched players like Fresenius SE and DaVita Inc.

Drawing on data from across CVS, including its Aetna insurance business and Caremark drug-benefits unit, as well as other sources, the company in 2019 created dozens of algorithms it says can predict which patients could develop kidney disease, and when. People with chronic ailments such as diabetes or hypertension can develop kidney problems, adding to the cost and complication of caring for them.

Health plans can enroll their members in CVS's kidney-care program. CVS reaches out to the patients its algorithms identifies about having a doctor assess their risk of kidney disease. About half choose to do so, CVS pharmacy-benefits executive Alan Lotvin said in an interview.

CVS patients are roughly twice as likely to receive dialysis in their homes as typical kidney patients, the executive said. A small test in one market showed enrolling people in CVS's program cut the cost of hospitalization by $4,000 per person a year, according to Lotvin.

Even before patients are sick enough to need to go to the hospital, treating chronic kidney disease can be costly. Patients often need to travel several times a week to dialysis centers to receive the blood-cleaning treatment. Dialysis costs roughly $90,000 per person annually, according to the U.S. Renal Data System 2019 annual data report.

However, home treatment options have expanded in recent years and they tend to be less expensive. Policymakers have tried to encourage at-home dialysis as a cost-saving measure; last year the Trump administration took steps to expand the types of home kidney care that Medicare will pay for.

CVS's success in kidney care so far is gratifying because it is one of the most complex diseases to manage, Lotvin said. That gives the company confidence it can help look after other less complex chronic conditions, such as high cholesterol.

"We've demonstrated that we can connect all the different parts of our organization — care management, insurance, local network contracting, kidney dialysis expertise — and create better outcomes," Lotvin said.

CVS also wants to more closely link primary-care centers with its HealthHubs. CVS introduced the HealthHubs, which offer more medical services than its traditional CVS drugstores, in 2019 after closing its acquisition of Aetna.

The planned buyback will be used to at least offset share count dilution next year, CVS said. It's the first time it has increased its dividend or repurchased stock since 2017.

Angelica Peebles and Marthe Fourcade report for Bloomberg News.

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