Caremark Rx announces its relocation to Nashville.

Founded 10 years earlier by HealthSouth execs Richard Scrushy and Larry House, Caremark Rx’s move from Birmingham to Nashville signifies one of the first non-health care services companies to move to Nashville. The Council and some of its leaders are credited with recruiting the pharmaceutical services company to the area.

In October 1997, six years before its move to Nashville and while the company is still known as MedPartners, Scrushy’s organization enters serious negotiations to be purchased by Joe Hutts’s PhyCor, but the deal eventually unravels. In September 2003, Caremark Rx buys out AdvancePCS for $5.6 billion and surpasses HCA as Nashville’s largest public company.

The company eventually merges with CVS Corp. in March 2007, and its headquarters will be relocated again, this time to Woonsocket, R.I. Prominent Caremark alums such as Mac Crawford and Howard McLure stay behind to create and run health care startups in Middle Tennessee.