Bluffton’s eviCore sold to Express Scripts for $3.6 billion

eviCore Healthcare, one of Bluffton’s largest employers, will be sold to St. Louis based Express Scripts Holdong Co. for $3.6 billion sometime in the fourth quarter, according to a release from Express Scripts.

When asked if the move might lead to job losses at the Bluffton operation, Brian Henry, Express Scripts vice president of Corporate Communications, said Tuesday nothing will change for eviCore, which will continue to operate as a stand-alone business.

EviCore moved its headquarters to Bluffton from New York in 2006 and renewed a five-year lease on a 80,000-square-foot building on Buckwalter last year.

The company, a managed health care benefits firm, employs nearly 4,000 people throughout the country with about 600 employees working out of the Bluffton office.

It is one of the top 20 largest employers in the county, according to Beaufort County and S.C. Department of Employment and Workforce documents.

“Together with eviCore, Express Scripts will be an even more powerful partner in managing costs for patients and payers, bringing us closer to our goal of becoming the nation’s leading patient benefit manager,” said Express Scripts CEO Tim Wentworth, in a press release.

Express Scripts, provides integrated pharmacy benefit management services, according to its release.

“We are really excited about what we can accomplish together,” Henry said. “The idea that collectively we would be able to manage benefits for a third of America, we felt it could really change healthcare trajectory in this country.”

eviCore is being acquired from its current investors including General Atlantic, TA Associates and Ridgemont Equity Partners.

Representatives from eviCore did not return phone calls on Tuesday.

This story was originally published October 10, 2017 at 1:40 PM with the headline "Bluffton’s eviCore sold to Express Scripts for $3.6 billion."