Matej Mikulic
Research expert covering health, pharma & medtech
Cigna - Statistics & Facts
In 2023, the Cigna Corporation generated more than 195 billion U.S. dollars of revenue. This places Cigna among the 30 largest companies based on revenue worldwide. Looking at the development of the company’s revenues, a massive jump in 2018-2019 catches the eye, when it increased from under 50 billion U.S. dollars to over 150 billion dollars. That was, of course, due to Cigna’s acquisition of Express Scripts in the second half of 2018, a deal worth some 67 billion U.S. dollars and one of the health industry’s largest deals in that decade. With this step, Cigna, previously known primarily as a health insurance company, also entered the pharmaceutical market. In fact, the company currently earns significantly more money through its pharmacy business than through insurances.
Shifting the focus
Cigna itself was originally formed in 1982 by the merger of the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company and the Insurance Company of North America, two old insurance companies with roots in the 18th and 19th centuries. The abbreviations of these two companies – CG and INA – were used to create the new name: Cigna. Today, the insurance-focused segment of the company is named Cigna Healthcare, taking care of nearly 20 million medical customers. The pharmacy-focused segment that was previously Express Scripts now runs under the name Evernorth Health Services. In general, Cigna generates around 137 billion dollars of revenue through pharmacies, about 44 billion dollars through insurance premiums, and another 12.6 billion dollars through fees and other income.A competitive landscape
In both segments, Cigna faces strong competition from big, established players. In the U.S. pharmacy landscape, the top competitors are CVS Health Corporation, Walgreens Boots Alliance, and UnitedHealth Group’s OptumRx. Cigna currently holds around 11 percent of the U.S. prescription drug market. Among health insurance companies, based on membership, Cigna’s biggest competitors are (again) the UnitedHealth Group, Humana, Aetna (part of CVS Health), and Anthem (renamed to Elevance Health in 2022). Interestingly, Anthem tried to acquire Cigna from 2015 onwards, but eventually had to back off after an antitrust lawsuit that came to an end in 2020.
