WOONSOCKET, R.I. — A decade after CVS Health paid nearly $13 billion to buy Omnicare, the nursing home pharmacy titan is now headed for a bankruptcy auction. It’s the latest chapter of Omnicare’s demise, after it was found liable for fraudulently billing the government and ordered to pay nearly $1 billion last year.
The company has continued operating during bankruptcy, first filed in September 2025, and now GenieRx Holdings LLC has proposed paying CVS $250 million in cash for its troubled subsidiary.
An auction is planned for May 5, overseen by US Bankruptcy Court for the District of Northern Texas. GenieRx’s “stalking-horse” offer sets the floor for any competing offers.
Omnicare dispenses tens of millions of prescriptions annually to patients in nursing homes and other facilities nationwide. CVS’s acquisition of the Cincinnati-based company, first founded in 1981, was the corporation’s attempt to broaden its presence in the specialty pharmacy business as it sought to capitalize on an aging population. And while Omnicare was not directly tied to CVS’s pharmacy benefit management business, the deal was expected to help strengthen CVS’s negotiating power with drug makers.
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Omnicare is now the largest long-term care pharmacy services provider in the country. Yet Woonsocket-based CVS has been pursuing a plan to sell Omnicare since 2022.
When Omnicare first filed for bankruptcy, its attorneys listed assets of at least $100 million and liabilities between $1 billion and $10 billion, according to court documents.
GenieRx is a joint partnership between private equity firm Milrose Capital LLC and health-care investment and management firm Integro Asset Management LLC, which does business as Integro Healthcare Services.
“We are making meaningful progress in our court supervised process and are pleased to enter into this purchase agreement with GenieRx,” said David Azzolina, Omnicare’s president, in a statement.
Azzolina said GenieRx’s interest “reflects the strength of Omnicare’s clinical expertise” and Omnicare’s customer base.
In July 2025, a federal judge ordered Omnicare to pay $948.8 million in penalties and damages as part of a whistleblower lawsuit claiming the company fraudulently billed the government for invalid drug prescriptions. US District Judge Colleen McMahon said the company filed more than 3.3 million in false claims over an eight-year period starting in 2010.
A former Omnicare pharmacist in Albuquerque, N.M., first filed the lawsuit against the company in 2015. The US Department of Justice later intervened in the case in 2019. Both parties accused Omnicare of improperly billing Medicare, Medicaid, and Tricare prescriptions for patients in assisted-living communities, group homes, and other long-term care facilities without valid prescriptions.
“False claims in the health care industry cost every American,” US Attorney Jay Clayton said at the time of the verdict.
If GenieRx was to acquire Omnicare, it would assume operating liabilities, but the massive fraud judgment and other debts would remain behind in bankruptcy court.
Alexa Gagosz can be reached at alexa.gagosz@globe.com. Follow her @alexagagosz and on Instagram @AlexaGagosz.