Companies in MSK therapies (and more) were the ‘IT’ this week:
Hinge Health’s IPO filing this week the talk of healthcare finance. In the teeth of a roiling market (for no good reason at all in C), Hinge’s SEC S-1 filing of a preliminary prospectus has many agog. Hinge had a 33% 2024/2023 revenue growth to $390 million and $468 million in billings, 2,250 employer clients and approximately 20 million contracted lives as of the end of last year. Net loss was reduced substantially, to $11 million from 2023’s $108 million.
Not disclosed in the filing are the number of Class A shares on offer (on the NYSE under HNGE) or the pricing range. According to FierceHealthcare’s and TechCrunch’s IPO specialist source at Renaissance Capital, Hinge Health could raise $500 million in its IPO. It already has substantial funding through 10 rounds, the last 2021’s Series E of $400 million, totaling $826 million .(Crunchbase) Its backers who are prepping for a partial or full exit are 8% shareholders Coatue, Tiger Global Management, Whale Rock Capital Management, Bessemer Venture Partners, Insight Partners (19%), and Atomico (15%). Founders Daniel Perez (CEO) and Gabriel Mecklenburg (director) own 18.9% and 8.2%, respectively. It is one of the largest and most successful in a highly crowded market in MSK therapy and virtual physical therapy, with Sword Health its largest competitor–and also talking IPO. And like others, it has diversified into other medical areas: pain management (Enso) and female pelvic health.
Surprisingly, Hinge Health was first incorporated in 2012 as a private limited company in England and Wales. It was incorporated in Delaware in 2016. Release, Mobihealthnews
One of Hinge’s competitors, Vori Health, scored a $53 million Series B funding round. New Enterprise Associates (NEA) led this round along with previous investors AlleyCorp, Intermountain Health’s Intermountain Ventures, Echo Health Ventures, and Max Ventures, bringing their total funding since 2020 to $109 million. Vori’s model is physician-led with patients working with a virtual care team organizing care from diagnosis to therapy, prescriptions, labs, and imaging. They claim results of 91.6% of patients reporting clinically significant pain improvement, 78-90% reduction in elective orthopedic surgeries, a 42% decrease in opioid utilization, and up to a 68% reduction in depression and anxiety among patients. The funding will be used to deepen its value-based care initiatives (including evolving toward models with two-sided population health risk), invest in advanced data analytics for more precise targeting of high-risk members, and enhance its AI-powered technology platform and clinical programs to benefit patients, employers, and health plan partners. Release, Mobihealthnews
Another competitor which has considerably branched out from MSK is Dario Health. Their 2024, marked by the dizzyingly funded acquisition of Twill telementalhealth [TTA 29 Feb 2024] bumped up in full-year by 32.9% to $27.0 million, from $20.4 million in 2023. Net loss was reduced to $42.7 million from 2023’s $59.4 million. While still in MSK, Dario has branched out into diabetes, hypertension, weight management including GLP-1 therapy with MedOrbis, and behavioral health in-person and app based management in a B2B2C model for members of health plans and other payers, self-insured employers, providers, and consumers. Back in January, they completed a $25.6 million private placement of 25,606 shares to extend their cash runway. Release, Mobihealthnews
NYC-based CoachCare is acquiring Carrolton, Texas-based VitalTech. Both companies monitor chronic conditions via remote patient monitoring (RPM) and are about the same size. Acquisition cost was not disclosed. VitalTech CEO Jeh Kazimi and the under 50 person VitalTech staff will be joining CoachCare. CoachCare claims that they cover 200,000 patients in 3,000 locations. Release
Investor Warburg Pincus sells majority stake in ModMed to Clearlake Capital. The investment was not disclosed, but reports indicated the valuation of the EHR and practice management system company is estimated now at $5.3 billion. Summit Partners and ModMed cofounders Daniel Cane and Michael Sherling maintain a minority share. ModMed has been for sale on and off since 2022, most recently in January, but was looking at acquisitions last fall. Original reporting was from the Financial Times. Axios, Bloomberg Law, Release
And you think you might be behind the times? Health New Zealand likes to keep it simple…very simple. They run all their financial management on a single Microsoft Excel spreadsheet. HNZ spends NZ $28 billion and replaced 20 district health boards to consolidate their efforts, increase efficiencies, and reduce costs. According to their health minister, HNZ operates an estimated 6,000 applications and 100 digital networks. The Deloitte survey found at least five major issues, from hard-coded financial data making updating and sourcing difficult to do and trace, to simple human errors. Is that all? So if you need a chuckle… TechRadar
And even more head-shaking is Theranos’ Elizabeth Holmes challenging the courts, yet again. A report through Reddit, posted by legal maven mattschwink, tells us that she, through her attorneys, two days after the Ninth Circuit upheld both her and Sunny Balwani’s verdicts [TTA 5 Mar], filed on 26 February to extend the time to file a motion for a rehearing. It was granted on 3 March. The filings are noted on the public site Court Listener. Given the track record of these courts, the likelihood of a rehearing by a larger panel in the Ninth Circuit or even by the US Supreme Court on finding some kind of error in both the original verdict and appeal is akin to a snowball lasting in the Bryan, Texas prison courtyard on July 4th. But she does get attention.
Hinge Health has demonstrated strong growth despite market instability, proving the significant potential of digital MSK therapy. With more companies in this field heading toward IPOs, does this signal a major shift in how tech-driven healthcare services are evolving?
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