TTA’s Blooming Spring 5: Hinge Health’s IPO, 23andMe bought by Regeneron, sans Lemonaid, WeightWatchers’ future, debuts of Smarter Technologies and Fuze Health, VA EHR update, more!

May 23, 2025 | by

 

23 May 2025

The major news this week was the Hinge Health IPO, the first for digital health in two years–but the downside was that it was at a lower valuation. Denouements abounded with most 23andMe genetic assets bought by Regeneron, without a drink of Lemonaid. WeightWatchers’ time may have passed, new heads for Calibrate and Oak Street, and two more ‘arranged marriages’, Smarter Technologies and Fuze Health. An update on the VA EHRM in the budget. Masimo’s recovering, as is Ted of Strata-gee. 

Remember our soldiers, sailors, airmen, and Marines who have passed on this Memorial Day. Our Monday newsletter will be on Tuesday.

News roundup 22 May: an inflight ‘save’ and AliveCor’s KardiaMobile, rolling out the VA/Oracle EHR in ‘waves’, Fuze Health formed from LetsGetChecked/Truepill, hacking and ransomware 92% of PHI data breaches (A renaming of a 2024 ‘arranged marriage’–can it be saved?)

News roundup: Hinge Health public @$32/share, lower valuation. Is WeightWatchers game over? Calibrate replaces CEO, new prez for Oak Street, NMC gets ‘Smarter’ rolling up 3 portfolio companies, another splash of investor ‘cold water’ (The first health tech IPO in 2 years and ‘smushing’ when they can’t)

Update: Masimo’s website status and an analysis of the Sound United sale (Getting up and running post-attack, but what happened?)

23andMe sold to Regeneron for $256M in court-supervised bankruptcy, sans Lemonaid. And is it worth it? (We come up with a number, it’s likely)

From last week: UnitedHealth Group changed out CEOs suddenly. The new one is a surprising ‘blast from the profitable past’ but that didn’t stop Mr. Market from taking the stock down down down. Another blast involves Elizabeth Holmes’ partner Billy Evans fronting a diagnostic testing- in-a-box startup.”Surprise, surprise!” No surprise that Holmes lost her appeal of an appeal–nor Omada Health filing for an IPO. Unfortunately, our investigator on all things Masimo met his own surprise walking on a sunny day–fortunately, Ted’s on the mend. More about BCIs with Apple integration, a chronic pain management startup, Parkinson’s data, two good raises, and what payers pay to keep their execs safe.

Short takes: Synchron BCI integrates with Apple devices, Shields Health partners with Duke on specialty pharmacy, raises for Cohere Health, Olio (More BCI action with Apple getting into it)

Theranos’ revenge? Holmes’ partner Billy Evans founds a startup for diagnostic testing, denies it is ‘Theranos 2.0’; Holmes loses Federal rehearing appeal. (Is Holmes advising long distance? Letters from a Texas Jail?)

News roundup: Omada Health files for IPO, UPMC-Redesign partner on chronic pain management, OK and PA AGs warn 23andMe users to delete data, Verily to build Parkinson’s dataset, what payers paid for exec security (Omada follows Hinge. But the last is surprising–between a lot and a little)

This just in: UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty steps down immediately, replaced by former CEO Stephen Hemsley (updated 15 May) (UHG may change out CEOs, but continues to be hammered by Mr. Market)

Best wishes to Strata-gee’s Ted Green on a fast recovery! (Ted, our ace Masimo investigator, was put rather suddenly in a bad place…use your eyes when you drive!)

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News roundup 22 May: an inflight ‘save’ and AliveCor’s KardiaMobile, rolling out the VA/Oracle EHR in ‘waves’, Fuze Health formed from LetsGetChecked/Truepill, hacking and ransomware 92% of PHI data breaches

May 23, 2025 | by

Leading our news with a short, heartwarming story.

A passenger on a 29 April KLM flight from Uganda to Amsterdam experienced, three hours in, heart attack symptoms and extreme pain. The Dutch passenger’s luck was that a group of passengers were medical volunteers with Cura from the World, a Oklahoma-based group returning from a medical mission to Uganda. Dr. TJ Trad, the founder/CEO and an invasive cardiologist, created an aid station for the passenger where his legs could be raised and his vitals monitored with the assistance of a nurse. The lucky part was that the team had most of its equipment aboard, including a 12-lead ECG to confirm his cardiac status, plus five medications used for emergency treatment. He was stabilized, but the interesting part was that Dr. Trad used his personal AliveCor KardiaMobile to monitor the patient for arrhythmia, the later and high emergency stage. Dr. Trad was carrying it because a year earlier, he had experienced his own heart attack that canceled out his last medical mission trip and used it to monitor himself. With the patient under monitoring and medications, the KLM flight did not have to divert to Tunisia and it landed at Amsterdam Schiphol three hours later. At the hospital, the Dutch patient was examined over 12 hours and eventually discharged, as he was not diagnosed with a heart attack, stroke or pulmonary embolism, according to the passenger’s wife speaking with CNN. Dr. Trad was able to catch his connecting flight home. From an aviation perspective, it underscores the need for medical training and an emergency kit for monitoring this type of incident. Hat tip to Dave Albert, MD, founder and chief medical officer of AliveCor.

VA now dubbing the rollout of the Oracle Cerner EHR as a ‘wave’ strategy. Dr. Neil Evans, the acting executive program director of VA’s Electronic Health Record Modernization Integration (EHRM) Office elaborated on the ‘wave’ in an interview with GovCIO Media & Research. Each rollout will be clustered in sites that routinely work together and where patients flow for care from one location to another. For instance, the planned 2026 rollout previously announced in December 2024 will be in four Michigan locations: VA Battle Creek Medical Center, VA Detroit Healthcare System, VA Ann Arbor Healthcare System, and VA Saginaw Healthcare System. The nine additional sites in 2026, except for Alaska standing alone, are similarly clustered [TTA 4 April]. The new news? FTA:

  • The White House’s proposed discretionary budget for FY 2026 calls for an increase of nearly $2.2 billion in funding for the EHR program as a “top priority effort.”
  • The proposed budget also plans to streamline much of the agency’s over 1000 IT systems, which it claims are “decades old” and “duplicative.”
  • It pauses procurement of new systems and directs the U.S. Department of Government Efficiency Service (DOGE) to conduct a full review of the agency’s IT systems alongside the VA.
  • Other government agencies are going through the same process: National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Defense Department (MHS), and the Coast Guard also are modernizing their EHRs. VA is learning from them as well as the private sector, according to Dr. Evans.

The ‘wave’ needs to work. Veterans Affairs Secretary Doug Collins outlined VA plans at two House appropriations hearings last week on the 2026 and 2027 VA budgets. The total for the EHRM is $3.5 billion in FY 2026 (Federal budgets start in October; the total budget has been dubbed the ‘Big Beautiful Budget’) and is needed for additional rollouts in FY 2027. But given the failures at the six existing implementations and the continuing fixes and patches, in a process that seems like it started in 1900 (actually 2018), one can understand the consternation of Veterans Affairs committee member Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC): “I’m still dumbfounded at the billions and billions and billions of dollars that have been poured into an EHR that should have never been done in the first place. It’s not a system that should be used for the largest healthcare system in the country.” Healthcare Dive

Fuze Health launches–phase 2 of a merged LetsGetChecked and Truepill ‘arranged marriage’. The merger of the two last October with digital/mail order pharmacy Truepill operating as a subsidiary of at-home diagnostics via testing kits LetsGetChecked was a $525 million deal that we classified as a ‘smush’ when it was announced last August. Both were heavily invested in by Optum and torching  through cash. While $525 million was the purchase value in the headline, only $25 million was in cash and the rest of the financing didn’t add up to the total. The Phase 2 of this entity, Fuze Health, now has a third partner, prescription deliverer Alto, and a new name, Fuze Health. No acquisition amount is mentioned for Alto, which has a total funding of $62.4 million through a June 2021 Series B plus equity crowdfunding (March 2024!) and no financing from Optum (Crunchbase). The only Fuze management mentioned in the release are Alicia Boler Davis, Alto’s CEO, and Paul Greenall, Fuze chief development officer. Their website links back to the four individual companies.

In 2022, LetsGetChecked acquired Veritas Genetics, now prominently featured as part of Fuze. Also in 2022, Truepill fell under DEA scrutiny with a ‘show cause’ action after being a fulfillment pharmacy for Cerebral and Done Health in their Schedule II controlled substance violations. This was settled in November 2023 with multiple requirements including continuing heightened compliance (DEA release). Fuze Health promotes itself as “a technology-powered home health screening, genomics and pharmacy services provider committed to transforming patient experiences and enabling its healthcare partners – including care providers, health plans, employers and life sciences companies – to excel in an outcomes-focused system.” No mention of investors or backing, as is typical in these announcements.  Now go forth and make money. Hat tip to HIStalk 5/23/25 

Hacking and ransomware now constitute 92% of healthcare data breaches. Once upon a time, when this Editor reported on what were then unusual data breaches, the more common causes were insider theft, unauthorized access/disclosure, and improper disposal or loss. They have nearly vanished as the ‘business of breaches’ has settled down and internal security has approved. A cross-sectional study published as a research letter in JAMA Network surveyed breaches from 2009 to 2024 using HHS’s Office of Civil Rights (HHS-OCR) reporting. Of 566 incidents in 2024, 457 were “IT incidents” and 61 were tagged as ransomware, totaling 92%. Despite the massive Change Healthcare breach, ransomware breaches fell to 11%.  Considering patient records, there were 170 million breached in 2024 and hacking/IT incidents accounted for 91% of the total. Of 732 million records affected from 2010 to 2024, hacking or IT incidents and ransomware (considered as a subset) accounted for 88% (643 million) and 39% (285 million) of incidents. Since 2020, ransomware has affected more than half of all patients annually, reaching 69% in 2024–again, the effect of Change Healthcare. Also Healthcare Dive

News, deals, rumors roundup: Cerner’s DOD and VA go-lives, Akili’s ADHD therapy SPACs, Talkiatry’s $37M raise, Alto sings a $200M supper–and the Cigna-Centene rumors don’t stop

January 28, 2022 | by

While Cerner’s acquisition by Oracle is winding its way through regulatory approvals, their EHR implementations are moving forward through both the Military Health System (Department of Defense) and the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).

  • Within the MHS, Brooke Army Medical Center and Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center, both in the San Antonio (Texas) Market, went live with MHS GENESIS on 22 January. The change most visible to patients is the transition from TRICARE Online to the MHS GENESIS Patient Portal which enables 24/7 access for visit notes, secure messaging, test results, appointment scheduling, and online prescription renewal. MHS covers military retirees, active military, and family beneficiaries. According to the MHS’s website, the goal this year is to get to halfway–to implement MHS GENESIS in more than half of all military hospitals and clinics. It’s been taking place since 2017 and, in true military fashion, it’s planned in waves. Coming up are Naval Medical Center Camp Lejeune in South Carolina on 19 March and William Beaumont Army Medical Center in El Paso in summer.
  • VA is moving far more slowly, just getting to its second hospital. The Columbus VA go-live has been pushed back from 5 March to 30 April, citing training slowdowns due to a spike in staff COVID cases. Walla Walla, Washington is set for after Columbus, but the date is to be confirmed. The first, failed implementation at Spokane’s Mann-Grandstaff VA Medical Center in late 2020 was the subject of Federal hearings and a complete redo in VA’s plans and procedures in cutting over from VistA to Cerner Millenium. TTA 28 July and previous. Federal News Network

Akili Interactive, which has developed tech-driven, game-based cognitive therapies for ADHD and other psychiatric and neurological conditions, has gone public through a SPAC via a merger with Social Capital Suvretta Holdings Corp. I, The transaction is expected to close in mid-2022. Akili will be listed on the Nasdaq stock market under the new ticker symbol AKLI.

The SPAC is expected to provide up to $412 million in gross cash proceeds and value the company at over $1 billion. Investors in the $162 million PIPE are Suvretta Capital Management’s Averill strategy, Apeiron Investment Group, Temasek, co-founder PureTech Health, Polaris Partners, Evidity Health Capital, JAZZ Venture Partners, and Omidyar Technology Ventures. The funds raised will support the commercial debut of EndeavorRx, a FDA-cleared and CE-marked prescription digital therapeutic for pediatric ADHD. The technology is termed the Selective Stimulus Management Engine (SSME) and will be rolled out for ADHD, ASD, MS, and MDD treatment.

TTA noted Akili last year in a trial of AKL-T01 at several hospitals for treatment of long-COVID-related cognition problems. Unfortunately, the writing in their SPAC release made this Editor feel like she needed a few treatments.

Mentalhealthtech (psychtech?) continues to attract funding. Psychiatric care startup Talkiatry topped off its July $20 million raise with an additional $17 million from Left Lane Capital for a $37 million Series A financing round. CityMD founder Dr. Richard Park, Sikwoo Capital Partners, and Relevance Ventures also participated. Talkiatry uses an online assessment for a preliminary diagnosis and then matches you with a participating psychiatrist.  It is in-network with payers such as Cigna, Aetna, UnitedHealthcare (Oxford Health Plan), Oscar, and Humana. Funding will be used to expand beyond NYC. Mobihealthnews

Digital pharmacy is also hot. Alto, which promises same-day filling and courier delivery, raised a $200 million Series E led by Softbank Vision Fund. Their total to date is over $550 million. Alto serves selected areas mainly in California, Nevada, Texas, and NYC (Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn). Competitors Capsule had another raise of $300 million in April for a total of $570 million and Medly raised a $100 million Series B in 2020. Mobihealthnews

In the wake turbulence of Centene’s dramatic management shakeup last month [TTA 18 Dec], rumors continue to surface that insurer Cigna is interested in acquiring all, or possibly part, of Centene. Bloomberg News in publishing its article earlier this week cited ‘people familiar with the matter’ said that talks took place last year, but that they are not ongoing. Seeking Alpha picked this up, adding market activity boosting Centene. Perhaps the disclosure and the ‘denials’ align with what this Editor has heard–that it’s very much ongoing but under wraps.

A Centene buy makes sense, but only with Cigna. While Cigna is almost double the market value of Centene, it does not have the sprawling business model the latter has, nor do their businesses overlap much. However, some divestiture would be needed to do a deal, given the constrained regulatory environment in the US on the Federal and state levels. Any insurer merger is seen as anti-competitive, unless it is an acquisition of a smaller, struggling plan. 

It certainly would vault Cigna into the top rank of insurers with non-Centene branded exchange, Medicare Advantage and Medicaid plans, a provider network, an established MSO, and other lines of business including Magellan behavioral health management. Cigna might also value Centene’s international holdings, such as private hospitals Circle Health in the UK and Ribera in Spain. A sale would also create a quick and profitable ROI for Politan Capital Management, the activist investor company that initiated the retirement of 25 year CEO Michael Neidorff last month, rather than managing and reorganizing the sprawl of Centene’s businesses to make it more profitable.