Breaking: IKS Health finalized their acquisition agreement with TruBridge, Inc. Today’s (23 Apr) announcement did not contain an acquisition price, but IKS is offering shareholders $26.25 per share, a small premium above today’s close at $25.27. Both are revenue cycle management (RCM) companies and will strengthen capabilities in the rural and community hospital markets. Since TruBridge is publicly traded on Nasdaq with 14.91 million shares outstanding, the deal is a minimum of $391.4 million, considerably less than the rumored $675 million [TTA 15 Apr]. TruBridge’s largest shareholders (27%) have agreed to terms, but it is subject to the usual regulatory reviews with an expected closing in Q3. Otherwise, the press release is short on details, but IKS will finance the TruBridge buy with debt financed by Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, and Deutsche Bank.
The unstoppable Hims & Hers notches another rise with wider GLP-1 med access. Hims announced a deal with Eli Lilly to fulfill Zepbound prescriptions via Lilly Direct. It also permits its providers to prescribe medications that are fulfilled by independent pharmacies, which essentially opens Hims up to all GLP-1 drugs, with restrictions of course.
Once largely wedded to compounded weight loss drugs, to the point of running commercials on 2025’s Super Bowl that their obesity drugs are priced “for profits, not patients”, Hims & Hers has flipped the script in less than a year to be the online prescriber of nearly all brand name weight loss drugs. This started about five months after the Super Bowl when FDA finalized the ban on compounding those drugs. Pretty soon Hims was inking deals, starting with Novo Nordisk in May 2025 to prescribe Wegovy and fulfill through NovoCare Pharmacy. In March, they settled their long-running legal tiff with Novo when they agreed to drop their just-debuted compounded pill to sell Novo’s Wegovy and Ozempic in both pill and injectable versions. (The newest Lilly weight loss med, Foundayo, is only available DTC from them and commercial insurance/cash pay only.) Hims is up to $28/share. Sherwood News
News of raises for some interesting companies came thick and fast the latter part of the week
Wearable neuromodulator developer Cala Health gained $50 million in an unlettered raise. Unusually, it had a sole funder, Trinity Capital. Cala has developed the only FDA-cleared 510(k) wearable for action hand tremor in people with essential tremor and Parkinson’s disease. The funding will be used to scale commercial distribution and product development. The kIQ device uses transcutaneous afferent patterned stimulation (TAPS), which reduces hand tremors by measuring a patient’s tremor pattern and delivering individualized nerve stimulation. Prior rounds were in 2024 ($50 million), $77 million in 2021, and a $55 million Series B in 2019. Trinity Capital release, Mobihealthnews
Joyful Health, a financial operating system for providers, raised a $17 million Series A for a total of $22 million. It is designed as a claims denial intelligence and recovery infrastructure to work within an existing revenue cycle management system and connect claims data. The round was led by CRV with participation from seed investors XYZ Venture Capital, Designer Fund, Inflect Capital (the healthcare investment arm of Vituity, the largest physician-owned partnership in the United States), and Go Global Ventures (led by Commure founder Diede van Lamoen). Providers lose over $125 billion annually in lost revenue from unpaid or denied claims. Joyful Health blog, Yahoo Finance
Back in the popular stomping grounds of telemental health, Tava Health raised a $40 million Series C. Tava, based in Salt Lake City, markets a behavioral health platform to providers, employers, and health plans. It also announced three new products: Symphony for providers, TavaCare for the employer market, and Tava Guide for health plans, health systems, and care coordinators. Approximately 5,000 mental health providers are a part of the Tava Health network. Investors were led by Centana Growth Partners with participation from Catalyst Investors, Blue Heron Ventures, Peterson Ventures, and Springtide Ventures. Tava has raised $73 million since 2020 with its last raise in 2024. Yahoo Finance (release), Behavioral Health Business, Mobihealthnews
And an interesting partnership
Popular actor Jeremy Renner is partnering with public safety and first responder platform RapidSOS. NYC (!)-based RapidSOS originally specialized in the technical aspects of public 911 systems and then developed integrations to link data from over 350 million connected devices, apps, and sensors directly to 911 centers and first responders. Increasingly, these integrations are AI-powered and even incorporate drones. Mr. Renner relates very well to first responders, having his own near-death experience on New Year’s Day 2023 where his snowcat machine rolled over and crushed him, breaking 38 bones along with blunt chest trauma. He is the focus of a 30-second documentary leading up to next Wednesday’s (29 April) premiere of Behind the Emergency. He is not only helping to tell their development story from his experience, but also as a partner plus investor. Mobihealthnews
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