Cigna 2Q26: Consistent quarter with solid specialty Rx growth and reset of PBM margins; maintain PT at $381

Research evidence excerpt

Cigna 2Q26: Consistent quarter with solid specialty Rx growth and reset of PBM margins; maintain PT at $381

n the Cigna Healthcare business, they are able to identify customers with complex or chronic health

needs earlier, and customers who engage in these AI-enabled programs have reduced medical costs by approximately $2,000

per year on average.

M&A - Regarding M&A, the company does not feel compelled to enter additional areas of the insurance market.

Our take

CI delivered a modest beat-and-raise quarter, reinforcing our view that the path to multiple expansion remains intact. Evernorth

performance was largely in line with expectations, with specialty pharmacy outperforming while PBM margins continued to

reset to a lower but more sustainable level of roughly 2%. We view this margin reset positively, as stability in PBM profitability

should improve investor confidence and support a higher multiple over time.

Within specialty pharmacy, results appear to be benefiting from biosimilar adoption. Revenue was somewhat lighter than

expected, but both $ and % margins were better than anticipated. One potential source of upside is if $ margins on specialty

biosimilars ultimately prove higher than those on branded specialty products. While this dynamic is common in oral therapies,

we have not yet incorporated a similar benefit into our specialty biosimilar assumptions. We do note that CI commented that

margins can recover to the 4% range, although what portion of the business was less clear in the comment. We expect that this

refers to the non-big client portion of the traditional PBM segment, a level which is roughly consistent with levels we perceive as

achievable with the new model.