LONDON (ShareCast) - The largest health insurer in the US has launched its largest acquisition ever to bolster its position in the market for drug benefit plans.
United Health Group is to pay approximately $12.8bn in cash for Catamaran Corp..

United Health will pay nearly a 27% premium to merge Catamaran with its own drug-benefit unit, OptumRx. The new unit resulting from the merger will cover a combined 65m clients.

Both companies are banking on forecasts for the drugs benefit industry to quadruple in size by 2020 to a projected $100bn.

Mark Thierer, Catamaran's chief executive officer (CEO), will become the chief of the new OptumRx, while Timothy Wicks, the current CEO, will become president.

The purchase is expected to be accretive to UnitedHealth Group's earnings per share in 2016 by 30 cents.

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