...public. Today’s hearing focused on Aetna’s divestiture of its Medicare Part D business as a prelude to the merger, and whether it was quite enough. Much of the discussion was on the relative strength of the buyer, WellCare (itself in the early stages of being acquired), and whether it could be truly competitive in the Part D market. The other factor is that CVS as a dominant pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) could undermine WellCare in several ways. PBMs operate opaquely and are highly concentrated, with CVS, Optum (UnitedHealthcare), and Cigna-Express Scripts accounting for 70 percent of the market. Modern Healthcare... Continue Reading
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Drawn-out decision on the CVS-Aetna merger held up again in Federal court
...Judge Leon has been examining the merger up, down, and sideways in, of course, the public interest and great attention by the press. Now a week (or more) of May hearings will commence with those who don’t like this merger, including the American Medical Association, the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, pharmacy and consumer groups. Certainly this is long and drawn out, even for the DC district court. Even the high drama of the Aetna-Humana and Cigna-Anthem mergers took a little less time. Judge Leon continues to get coverage and the merger continues to be held up. Reuters, Fox News, Seeking Alpha... Continue Reading
Comings and goings: CVS-Aetna finalizing, Anthem sued over merger, top changes at IBM Watson Health
...lift. And they will get into this far sooner than Amazon. which will split its ‘second headquarters’ among the warehouses and apartment buildings of Long Island City and the office towers of Crystal City VA. Whatever happened to the Delaware Chancery Court battle between Anthem and Cigna? Surprisingly, no news from Wilmington, but that didn’t stop Anthem shareholder Henry Bittmann from suing both companies this week in Marion (Indiana) Superior Court. The basis of the suit is Anthem’s willfully going ahead with the attempted merger despite having member plans under the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association meant the merger was... Continue Reading
$6.8 bn in digital health funding through Q3 blows the doors off 2017: Rock Health
...account for 63 percent, and corporate VCs for 15 percent. Some of those CVCs are major names such as GSK, Abbott, and Cigna. Big tech is also moving into healthcare, with Amazon’s $1bn acquisition of PillPack, the Apple Watch 4, Google’s Nest. Rock Health’s trend prediction is continued consolidation in digital health, with companies continuing to acquire each other. “With available capital and a desire to build out product lines, talent, and client bases, it’s not surprising to see a great deal of M&A activity within digital health.” One example given is Welltok, which plays in the consumer health ‘activation’... Continue Reading
Cigna’s $69 million acquisition of Express Scripts clears US Department of Justice hurdle
...more than 2 million documents, and more than 100 industry people were interviewed. Cigna and Express Scripts now must negotiate over 50 state departments of banking and insurance–over 50 because some states have two. Both companies already have shareholder approval, and the lack of overlap in their businesses limits the possibility of divestitures. Their advocacy website is here. But state DOBIs can be unpredictable, as Cigna found out with Anthem. (Their contentious breakup is still being contested in court–and Cigna could use the contractual breakup money to ease the Express Scripts debt estimated at $15 bn. Forbes. Bloomberg, Healthcare Dive... Continue Reading
CVS-Aetna, Cigna-Express Scripts reportedly on road to merger approval; Athenahealth in hostile takeover–or not (updated)
CVS’ pickup of Aetna, and Cigna‘s acquisition of Express Scripts are reported to be clearing the Department of Justice anti-trust review within the next few weeks, just in time for pumpkin season. The DOJ may have concerns on some assets related to Medicare drug coverage and may require a sell-off to resolve them. One potential buyer is WellCare Health Plans, which this week completed its acquisition of Meridian Health Plans and entered the S&P 500 on Monday. The Cigna-Express Scripts combine may not require any asset selloff. Seeking Alpha (report is from the Wall Street Journal). The once blazingly hot... Continue Reading
News roundup: Walmart and Microsoft AI, are derm apps endangering public with 88% skin cancer diagnosis?
...Healthcare in Atlanta. Then there is CVS-Aetna, Cigna-Express Scripts, Google, and (looming above all) Amazon. (Though you can tuck all the years of Amazon’s profits into one year of Walmart’s.) The ITV News headline grabs attention — but are dermatology apps really endangering the public when teledermatology can help diagnose 88 percent of people with skin cancer and 97 percent of those with benign lesions? A University of Birmingham-led research team did a metastudy of the literature and found three failings: “a lack of rigorous published trials to show they work and are safe, a lack of input during the... Continue Reading
Department of Justice won’t challenge CVS-Aetna merger: report
...in two courts [TTA 9 Feb 17]. Cigna is still living with the hangover of their bad breakup with Anthem, with a fight over a nearly $1.9 bn breakup fee [TTA 17 May 17] continuing in the Delaware Chancery Court in 2019. Cigna nixed any other insurers in a horizontal merger and sought out Express Scripts, a pharmacy benefits manager (PBM) which was reeling a bit after its largest client (coincidentally) Anthem departed. Anthem sued its PBM, Express Scripts, for $15 billion, alleging the PBM overcharged it by $3 billion annually The merger will cost them over $550 million in... Continue Reading
Breached healthcare records down 72% but incident numbers steady. Then there’s MyFitnessPal’s 150 million…
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Hackermania.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Hackermania in healthcare may be running less wild…but what about consumer health devices? Year-end and top-of-year analyses indicate that the flood of breached records may be starting to drain. A Bitglass analysis of 2017 US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) data from its infamous ‘Wall of Shame’ is encouraging. They found that the number of breached records decreased over the 2015-2017 period by 72 percent between 2015 and 2017 and by 95 percent from 2016. The calculation excludes the huge spike in breaches due to two 2015 incidents at Anthem and Premera Blue Cross [TTA... Continue Reading
Is the Amazon Effect good or bad for consumers–and health tech?
Your busy Editor, who has been on business assignment this past month, has noticed the relative quiet around the subject of How Amazon is Rattling Healthcare. We’ve already noted here the retail and pharmacy/pharmacy benefit effects with CVS-Aetna, Albertsons-Rite Aid, and Cigna-Express Scripts. Aside from the bottom line, and Cigna finally closing a gap with other insurers with pharmacy benefit management services (PBM), is it good for the healthcare consumer as promised? Max Nisen’s article in Bloomberg Gadfly (sic) says ‘not so fast’. His argument is as follows: Companies are largely following the lead of UnitedHealth and its Optum units,... Continue Reading
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