Have we reached a peak? 23andMe, the genomic testing and genome research company, has struck gold, oil, and platinum in a merger with ‘blank check’ SPAC (special purpose acquisition company) VG Acquisition Corp. VG was formed by Richard Branson’s Virgin Group for the purposes of the acquisition. By end of Q2, the company will be trading on the NYSE under the ticker symbol ME. The company’s valuation is estimated as $3.5 bn. 23andMe’s SPAC follows on December’s $85 million Series F round, bringing their total funding pre-SPAC to about $900 million. The transaction will result in 23andMe having around $984... Continue Reading
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New Year’s Deal and Event Roundup: Optum-Change Healthcare, Walgreens-Amerisource Bergen, December’s deal potpourri, CES and JPM
...and Amerisource Bergen will continue their US distribution agreement until 2029 and Alliance UK with Boots until 2031. One way of interpreting this is fattening their ‘war chest’ for expansion, including their major bet with Village Medical. Perhaps a payer or a health tech company? Press release December’s potpourri of Big Deals was rounded up by FierceHealthcare: Alphabet’s Verily closed out 2020 with a massive $700 million funding round primarily from Alphabet to fund its commercial work 23andMe got a lifeline of $82.5 million in Series F funding from an offering of $85 million in total equity shares. TTA analyzed... Continue Reading
News roundup: Cera hits £89.5M revenues, Alcove Carephone in new elder housing, Everlywell home test kits raise $179M; FDA clears Lucira’s all-in-one COVID test kit, Apple Watch new ECG feature
...$49 to a comprehensive food sensitivity test at $259. Prediction: Everlywell and similar companies will be 2021’s 23andMe/Ancestry.com. Fierce Biotech An equally intriguing ‘home run’? FDA cleared the first ‘all-in-one’ home test for COVID-19 under an EUA (Emergency Use Authorization). The Lucira Health molecular test from a nasal swab sample is completed by a battery-powered handheld unit that includes all the reagents needed to process the test. The unit then shows the result with a green light for positive or negative. Average time: 2 minutes. Molecular tests are more sensitive and accurate than the current quick tests of antigens. Go-to-market... Continue Reading
News roundup: Ancestry sells 75% to Blackstone, Cornwall NHS partners with Tunstall, most dangerous health IT trends, Slovenski departs from Walmart Health
...23andMe saw their consumer businesses crater late last year, with layoffs in January and February. It’s an example of a quickly saturated market (one test and you’re done) flogged by annoying TV commercials over the holidays [TTA 13 Feb]. Where the profit is, of course, is not in consumer tests but in selling the genomic data to other companies, something which the market leader, 23andMe, realized early on with half-ownership by GSK ($300 million, a real bargain). 23andMe is also intensively marketing as a premium subscription service updates on health information derived from member testing. Ancestry has followed, but reportedly... Continue Reading
Is the bloom off the consumer DNA business? It’s past time for a Genomic Bill of Rights. (updated)
Perhaps a bit of sanity enters. Ancestry, the largest vendor of home-based tests for genetic testing to trace ancestry and seek health information, announced layoffs of 6 percent, or about 100 people, from its Utah and California offices. This follows on post-New Year layoffs at chief rival 23andMe of 14 percent of its staff, also about 100 people. The slowdown in the consumer appeal of genetic testing is apparently across the board. While one hears of genetic tests being given for holidays and birthdays, there is little repeat need. The market was easily saturated: the early adopters have done their... Continue Reading
A Practice Fusion coda: an insider’s perspective on the pressure to ethically breach an ‘objective’ service for revenue
...crossing of the line after Mr. Howard’s departure with a new pharma-minded team. The evidence in the CDS lies in the citations funded by–pharma and biomed companies. The inevitable result: Allscripts, now the owner, settling for $145 million with the DOJ and having ‘kickbacks’ attached to their business. Dr. Reider is now CEO of the Alliance for Better Health in Albany, NY. Docnotes: When sponsored CDS is a crime This is hardly the first instance of the blurring of boundaries between ethics and revenue. All those paying to get their genetic history from 23andme or Ancestry.com ought to consider that... Continue Reading
CB Insights names a Top 150 of digital health startups
...C is notable), top well-funded companies, and ‘unicorn startups’. Unlike Rock Health, CB Insights also looks at where in the world the startups are from: 116 in the 150 from the US, 17 from Asia, 16 from Europe, and 1 from Canada (League employee health benefits). Many of the usual suspects are here: 23andMe, Babylon Health (UK), American Well, Doctor on Demand, Proteus Digital Health, Iora Health, MDLive, Oscar, One Medical, the relentlessly advertised (in US) Noom, TytoCare, China’s WeDoctor and GoodRx (which last month acquired telemedicine provider HeyDoctor). Others are surprising in various aspects: the new well-wired Medicare Advantage... Continue Reading
SNF emergency telehealth provider Call9 shuts down most operations, after $34M raise (updated)
...with a clear path to reducing highly expensive ER/ED admissions in long-term care–a major CMS goal–by over 50 percent and saving several millions per year per facility, additional longer-time frame funding wasn’t in the offing despite a hefty Series A in 2016 and Series B in 2017 with investors like Redmile, Index Ventures, Refactor Capital, and Y Combinator, including 23andMe’s Anne Wojcicki and actor/investor Ashton Kutcher. Perhaps, as Dr. Peck put it in the CNBC article, it’s the difference between immediate fee-for-service revenue versus longer-term value-based care which is built on savings and outcomes for Medicare, Medicaid, and private insurers,... Continue Reading
The Theranos Story, ch. 60: becoming a Cautionary Tale of Silicon Valley Ethics
...funding of late: Nurx over $41 million and uBiome over $100 million. The Silicon Valley rules–fake it to make it, and move fast, break things–once again blowing back on what may be good companies. The temptation may be too great for these health tech startups, something reflected on in this CNBC article. TechCrunch, which breathlessly hyped Theranos back in the day, while duly noting and linking to the programs on How Theranos Fell, puts on its hair shirt for Dear Hollywood, here are 5 female founders to showcase instead of Elizabeth Holmes. Interestingly, one is not Anne Wojcicki of 23andme.... Continue Reading
Where’s the evidence? Healthcare unicorns lack the proof and credibility of peer-reviewed studies.
...dearth of peer-reviewed research among healthcare unicorns–and that it’s detrimental. It measured whether these unicorns published peer-reviewed articles and whether they publish highly-cited (in other publications) articles; compared them against companies with lower valuations; and whether founders or board members themselves impacted the scientific literature through their own citations. The meta-study looked at 18 current and 29 exited healthcare unicorns. Highlights: Two companies–23andMe and Adaptive Biotechnologies published almost half of all unicorn papers–196 combined Three unicorns (Outcome Health, GuaHao and Oscar Health) had no published papers, and two more (Clover Health, Zocdoc) had published just one Seven of the exited... Continue Reading
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