TTA’s cool looks: Oracle Health speculation, Singapore charges Biofourmis ex-CEO, OpenEvidence tops $12B valuation, Carbon Health’s Ch.11, financings, M&A, a future IPO, more!

February 13, 2026 | by | No Comments

 

13 February 2025 (yes, Friday the 13th)

A big two weeks for news. The hottest article is a review of all the speculation on whether Oracle will ditch its expensively created Oracle Health–and Cerner–to finance building AI data centers. In shockers, Singapore has brought fraud and related charges against Biofourmis’ former CEO–and OpenEvidence is topping a $12 billion valuation. We also have a lot of fresh financings, some small M&A, and even one pending IPO, in contrast to 2025’s Gobi Desert. Bankruptcies continue, with an excellent Must Read on Carbon Health’s transition from $3B unicorn to Chapter 11.

Please feel free to comment and pass along. Let me know if this is worth it to you!

News bites: Amazon Pharmacy’s same-day delivery zooms, One Medical’s lab results app, OpenEvidence’s valuation shock, NYU Langone-Isaac Health, HealthMark buys Purview, Harbor Health buys Rippl, big raises for Solace Health, Talkiatry

Must Read: an excellent analysis on Carbon Health’s bankruptcy–and the Ominous Parallels

Chutes and Ladders w/o 9 Feb: Biofourmis’ ex-CEO faces 7 major Singapore fraud charges (updated), Doximity’s 17% drop; Devoted Health’s big $366M raise, Garner Health garners $118M, Synthpop’s $15M Series A

What’s happening now with the VA on the Oracle EHRM rollout?

Chutes & Ladders this week: Carbon Health’s Ch. 11; Centene’s 2-way beat, TrumpRx.com debuts; Doc.com files for $24M Nasdaq listing, $55M for Alaffia Health, big Series Ds for Midi Health and ElevenLabs

Summing up the speculation: will Oracle sell off Oracle Health/Cerner to finance $300B OpenAI datacenter buildout?

Oh yes, one more….So why is there a ‘100% Written by a human’ flag in the header?

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donna.cusano@telecareaware.com

Telehealth & Telecare Aware – covering news on latest developments in telecare, telehealth and eHealth, worldwide.

Must Read: an excellent analysis on Carbon Health’s bankruptcy–and the Ominous Parallels

February 12, 2026 | by | No Comments

Carbon Health isn’t an outlier. It’s part of a trend that founders and senior managers must beware. This Editor didn’t know much about Carbon Health when news of its bankruptcy made the news [TTA 7 Feb]. It was of interest because of its telehealth roots and its growth into a current combination of bricks-and-mortar primary care with telehealth. The liabilities were king sized but the way out they chose was unusual, a combination of a sale and a reorganization.

In context and by comparison, Carbon Health follows a path of inevitable failure trod by two other companies, Olive AI and IBM Watson Health. 2022, an ‘in the money’ year for some, was the finis year for all these companies.

  • Olive AI started to fall apart in late 2022, was closed or parted out a year later, and was a classic case of a company that was overfunded, all over the healthcare map, and finally ran out of time and money. (It was also funded heavily by General Catalyst, another red flag.)
  • IBM Watson Health was originally a company that everyone wanted to like with playing chess on Jeopardy. As it grew, it became less lovable and, just like Olive AI, started to pursue multiple lines of business without a solid track record on their main lines as it gobbled up smaller companies. It started to go sideways as early as 2020, it repeatedly failed in high profile pilots with major healthcare organizations, parts were sold off, then the remainder sold by IBM by July 2022. Most of it still does business as Merative, maintaining a very low profile.
  • Carbon started to fail in 2022 as the pandemic tide receded, their overextension was revealed, and their growth plans collapsed; despite buckets of cash extended by CVS and other investors, it was well on the road to bankruptcy. Their creation of and practice dependence on a proprietary EHR in retrospect was mind-boggling.

Get the cuppa and settle in. Stuart Miller of Haverin Consulting, writing on Substack (free article), draws the Ominous Parallels among the three companies first on a seven-point comparison grid: peak valuation (always inflated), core promise (always 35,000 feet), growth strategy (always hyper), strategic overreach (always too complex), technology gap (always aggravated by overreach), demand dependency (always a fadeaway), and outcome (inevitably, failure). He then illustrates what your company should avoid. What are the lessons smart founders and funders should be minding? If you’re a potential partner, investor, or a board member, what are the yellow and red flags? The deal breakers? The simple questions the company should be able to answer?

The subscriber version goes into far greater detail and is recommended if you have earnest money or your future at stake in digital health companies.

TTA Where *Is* Spring? 3: SPACs–why they cracked, Hinge Health and FTC-PBM delays, Transcarent’s tune change, UK’s pivot on NHS research data, why OpenAI is losing its way, more!

April 11, 2025 | by

 

11 April 2025

It’s still a chilly Spring in your Editor’s whereabouts, but we have, fresh out of the hothouse, a bumper crop of news and opinion. The big read for the weekend is Halle Tecco’s quantifying of the Cracked SPAC phenomenon and what’s happened with OpenAI. Transcarent closes its Accolade buy and changes its tune to ‘one place’, Walgreens doing a bit better. In touting, Keir Starmer’s bet on NHS data research and Elon Musk on human trials for Neuralink Blindsight. Hinge Health may postpone its long-awaited IPO and FTC pauses its long-awaited toss of the book at PBMs. Plus a new Perspectives on rural healthcare and telehealth.

The weekend read: why SPACs came, went, and failed in digital health–the Halle Tecco analysis/memorial service; why OpenAI is going to be a bad, bad business (Grab the cuppa and lunch for a good read and podcast) 

Extra, extra!: ATA Action forms Virtual Foodcare Coalition, Ophelia and Spring Health partner on opioid treatment, ISfTeH renews NSA status with WHO (More action from ATA Action and a partnership to watch in telementalhealth)

Midweek roundup: Transcarent closes Accolade; Walgreens beats Street; New Mountain Capital’s Office Ally buy-in; Neuralink Blindsight human trial coming up; PM Keir Starmer touts NHS data research; FTC’s PBM litigation break (Transcarent’s pivot?)

Rock Health’s digital health Q1: more money, fewer deals, more additions and partnerships in ‘leapfrogging’ (Still in a minor key this year)

News roundup: Hinge Health may postpone IPO, Rite Aid may enter 2nd bankruptcy, Veterans Affairs committees want new EHR costs & timeline, fired Texas health plan head hired private eyes to spy on members, providers, lawmakers (The last one is shocking)

Perspectives: Bridging the Gap in Rural Healthcare Through Telehealth (From Yosi Health)

Last week: A relatively light news week in a so-far chilly, stormy Spring. Our top article is not one, but two dives into the Unicorn Known as Hippocratic AI. 23andMe’s sale isn’t attracting a lot of buyers (deliberate?) but presents even more problems for the users who took their surveys. Dr. Oz confirmed for CMS as HHS goes on a GLP-1 diet and then some. VA adds to their Oracle 2026 rollout, ATA Action enlarges, and DOJ seeks execution for Brian Thompson’s assassin.

News roundup: 9 additional VA centers named for Oracle 2026 EHR rollout; ATA Action acquiring, expanding with DTA; Dr. Oz to lead CMS while HHS cuts; DOJ seeks death penalty for Mangione  (VA creeps forward, ATA Action enlarges, HHS chops, justice awaits)
Are Hippocratic AI and AI “nurses” the wave of the future–or just another tide of hype? Two articles question. (A needed discussion on this particular unicorn and whether its AI capabilities are all they’re pitched to be)
23andMe’s slim list of prospective buyers–who must uphold privacy policies, according to the FTC. But what about that survey information? *Updated* (More problems with 23andMe’s sale–and if you took their surveys, they have more data on you)

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Donna Cusano, Editor In Chief
donna.cusano@telecareaware.com

Telehealth & Telecare Aware – covering news on latest developments in telecare, telehealth and eHealth, worldwide.

Rock Health’s digital health Q1: more money, fewer deals, more additions and partnerships in ‘leapfrogging’

April 8, 2025 | by

There’s a small uptick and some optimism in the air for US digital health deals after all. After a 2024 that realistically was a ‘down round’ or Back To 2019, 2025 is picking its way through the New Reality of Global 52-Card Pickup, powered by a new US government and still-defining AI technology. Let’s unpack what Q1 was like in Rock Health’s view:

  • Funding was $3.8 billion across 122 deals, with an average deal size of $24.4 million. Compared to Q1 2024, total investment was up ($2.7 billion) as was the average size ($20.6 million) but number of deals were down (133).
  • Q1 funding also exceeded Q4 2024 funding in a pattern typical of the past few years.
  • 83% of deals were seed, Series A, and Series B rounds, not much different than 2024’s 86%. There were a few exceptions listed by Rock Health. By far the largest was Hippocratic AI’s $141M Series B but also Achira’s $33M seed, and Open Evidence’s $75M Series A. MSK player Vori Health sported a $53 million Series B in March
  • There were only 5 Series D or larger deals but three were jumbo sized: Innovaccer ($275M), Abridge ($250M), and Qventus ($105M), which pulled the average up to $105 million, nearly double that of FY 2024.

Rock Health is mum on unlabeled or funding not disclosed deals, such as the ones TTA noted through the quarter: Summer Health -Caraway, Neuroflow-Quartet Health, Iris Telehealth-InnovaTel, Dispatch Health-Medically Home, and Wysa-April Health.  It also doesn’t provide its usual analysis of healthcare value propositions and clinical indicators.

An interesting analysis in the shorter-than-usual announcement breaks down an approach they’ve dubbed ‘leapfrogging’, defined as ways companies can acquire knowledge or shift to respond to market dynamics:

  1. Tapestry Weaving. It’s a quaint way of saying that capabilities can be bought through M&A. (Business can be bought that way too–Transcarent closed its $621 million buy of enterprise care navigator Accolade today.) 
  2. Modular Tech Stacks. This type of tech design allows companies to switch out or add in tech as the market changes or better tech emerges.
  3. Channel Partnerships. Companies, by adding partners, add capability at low cost and reach, though the logistics of partnering, the integration cost and quality of service aren’t easy lifts.
  4. Engaging Disruptors. Companies invested in certain standard processes can expand by allying with their disruptors, versus viewing them as competitors. 

What’s not mentioned in the report are the high profile failures this quarter: 23andMe’s bankruptcy, Walgreens’ sale to Sycamore Partners, and Veradigm’s failure to sell itself.  Given the past few months, we’ll be doing a lot of ’embracing uncertainty’ this year!  Also FierceHealthcare

Breaking: Federal agents seize Steward Health’s CEO, international head’s mobile phones in widening US fraud investigations

November 26, 2024 | by

This fowl is coming home to roost, and it’s not going to be much of a Thanksgiving at Steward’s former CEO Ralph de la Torre and international CEO Armin Ernst’s tables as a result. Last week, reports emerged that Federal agents served search warrants and seized mobile phones belonging to both Steward executives, though neither has been formally charged with crimes in the US. Since July, rumors have prevailed that the US Attorney’s office based in Boston had opened an investigation, citing fraud and violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act about its business dealings in Malta between 2018 and 2023–and perhaps more [TTA 25 July]. These rumors were confirmed when a former US Senator, John Boehner, a Steward board director, testified on 14 November to a Federal grand jury in Boston. Boehner had access to financial information that could have revealed potential fraud and corruption within the operations of Steward Health, which collapsed into bankruptcy in May. Prosecutors were reportedly zeroing in on financial transactions that could have personally benefited de la Torre and their top executives. The former senator was best known of late for his lobbying and advocacy of marijuana legalization, which makes his board appointment even more interesting. Other former Steward executives have also been questioned by Federal investigators, according to the Boston Globe‘s (paywalled) reports.  Becker’s and Becker’s, both 25 November. Also Times of Malta 26 Nov

In the US, federal search warrants are not issued lightly. Credible evidence must be presented by a federal law enforcement officer or a US attorney to a magistrate judge with authority in any district where the crimes may have occurred. There must be probable cause to search for and seize a person or property. That includes electronic storage media such as servers, computers, and phones.

The Boston Federal investigation is separate from the outgoing Congress’ Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee’s subpoena and criminal/civil contempt charges referred in September to the Department of Justice [TTA 1 Oct and prior], complete with de la Torre’s immediate countersuit, nor the Malta Government’s ongoing actions against Steward (as Vitals Global) in the privatization of three hospitals in that island nation. Times of Malta 26 Nov  Steward’s business in Malta included a loony, gaudy spy operation against their critics there and elsewhere. That reported cost was $7 million, diverting much-needed funds while Steward defaulted on its bills and payrolls.  [TTA 2 July]  The Malta investigations have also been stymied by the non-appearance of both de la Torre and Ernst, on the grounds of facing US charges and an ill wife, respectively. Former Malta prime minister Joseph Muscat, under investigation, previously had his phone seized but refused to give the password, which may take a year to crack. Times of Malta 21 Nov

An extensive critique of Steward’s board of directors by the Globe’s reporters from October is available here courtesy of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance. It is a worthwhile dive into how Steward’s “unusual” business practices were facilitated by its tight-knit and inexpert board, drawing parallels with Theranos. Board members also enjoyed de la Torre’s considerable largesse, unlike Theranos.

Investigations by the Boston Globe’s reporters also reported that additional Steward funds were diverted to de la Torre’s personal pursuits, such as a private jet for friends, a donation to his children’s school, and a Madrid apartment. The last is interesting to this Editor as Spanish courts do not extradite easily for crimes not committed or charged in Spain, requiring review and approval of all requests by the National Court. de la Torre also has reported residences in Costa Rica where extradition via a bilateral treaty is easier. 

This Editor’s extra-legal advice to de la Torre remains that he should go on his $40 million oceangoing yacht for a trip into international waters and not even try to brazen this through. (And if anyone believes that the corporate phone hasn’t been tossed overboard or any phones seized hadn’t been thoroughly cleansed, I have a bridge over the Hudson River to sell you!)

“I will survive” updates: NeueHealth survives Q2 with small net loss, Steward sells off Stewardship Health practices to private equity firm for $245M

August 16, 2024 | by

Mid-August’s pre-Labor Day news deluge was so chock-full of developments that your Editor missed these two survival specials:

NeueHealth, a New Reality casualty that’s decided to create its Own New Reality (or the equivalent of the Twinkie Defense), reduced its Q2 net loss, eked out positive EBITDA.  NeueHealth, which has made an art form of Dodging Disaster, notched Q2 revenue of $226 million with a net loss of $53 million and a slight positive adjusted EBITDA of $3.96 million. Diluted loss per share was reported as $8.65, more than $5.00 worse than Q1. Revenue and losses were reduced as expected from Q2 2023 as their business model drastically changed with the sale or closure of its health plans by close of last year. Their covered lives are slightly down (value-based consumers meaning patients) or way up (enablement services lives, a fancy term for non-clinical support services such as health education and care coordination).

Their forecasts for 2024 are oh-so-rosy, with total revenue of $950 million, segmented for NeueCare (primary care in Florida and Texas plus affiliates) at $320 million plus NeueSolutions (management services including ACO management) at $640 million, with adjusted EBITDA in the $15-20 million range.

CEO Mike Mikan touted the $150 million debt financing round from Hercules Capital, which in this Editor’s view had more hedges than France’s Bocage [TTA 26 June]. Stock, which had a brief bump to over $6.60 in July, languishes in the $5.00 range. There is no update on the 16 June NYSE non-compliance notice for a market cap below $50 million that had a 45-day deadline for a plan to remediate within 18 months. Market cap is presently at $41 million. There is also no update on their ticking time bombs: the CMS Repayment Agreements due on or before 14 March 2025 nor $89 million owed to Texas from last year to cover risk liabilities for its shuttered ACA plans [TTA 14 Feb]. It’s those Gordian Knots again! Yahoo Finance, NeueHealth release, Fierce Healthcare

A bright spot in the messy bankruptcy unwinding of Steward Health Care is the pending sale of Stewardship Health, its practice arm, to be reviewed today. The teed-up proposed buyer offering $245 million is a new company, Brady Health Buyer, set up by private equity company Kinderhook Industries, LLC, on behalf of its existing investment, Nashville-based Rural Healthcare Group.

  • Kinderhook is a $8.5 billion PE with investments across healthcare services, environmental/business services, and automotive/light manufacturing sectors.
  • RHG has 14 clinics in rural North Carolina and Tennessee.
  • Stewardship operates practices in nine states, has 5,000 doctors, and serves 400,000 patients.
  • They will have to move facilities from Steward hospital properties. There are no location or state overlaps with RHG.

Their prior sale arrangement to Optum preceded the bankruptcy and was withdrawn after a DOJ challenge. The only other offer from 57 potential bidders approached, other than Kinderhook/Brady/RHG, were their FILO lenders.

Judge Christopher Lopez, the bankruptcy court judge in Texas, is expected to rule on the sale today (Friday), along with a separate sale of up to six Massachusetts hospitals. Regulatory approvals are required. WBUR, Healthcare Dive

Short takes: Holmes legal team appealing Tuesday 11 June; Steward Health asset sale OK’d, needs funding; fundings for Sword Health, Eko Health

June 5, 2024 | by

Elizabeth Holmes may be in Bryan, Texas serving time, but the appeals go on. Her legal team will appear before the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit at 9am next Tuesday 11 June. Her initial appeal was filed in December 2022 [TTA 15 Dec 2022] with full 132-page legal briefs in April 2023 [TTA 19 Apr 2023].

Holmes’ team is seeking a complete overturn of the trial and verdict. The appeals center on an unjust conviction based on prosecutorial misrepresentations, such as Holmes being told that the Theranos technology worked and thus not misrepresenting it to investors at that time, and actions by Judge Edward Davila in the presentation of evidence in including evidence favorable to the prosecution and not including defense-favorable evidence. The appeal also includes, according to earlier reports, an accusation that Judge Edward Davila used the wrong legal standard in sentencing Ms. Holmes and thus over-sentenced her. Holmes will not be present for the appeal as is customary.

Her 11 year sentence is currently, based on Bureau of Prisons standards for good behavior, cut down to about 9 years. Her chances are slim that the appeal will succeed, based on overall rates, Judge Davila’s reputation for thoroughness, and his presiding over two identical cases, the other for ‘Sunny’ Balwani with the same evidence and a similar but longer sentence. There is no public word on whether Mr. Balwani is also appealing. He is serving his time at Terminal Island, California. Mercury News  Our back file on Theranos is best accessed through TTA’s search tab, keyword Theranos or Holmes.

Another fine legal mess is unfolding in Texas with the US Bankruptcy Court, Southern District of Texas, hearings on Steward Health’s dissolution.

  • On Monday 3 June, Judge Christopher Lopez approved a two part plan for the asset sale. Part 1 would be about the Massachusetts assets, with most of the system’s hospitals (eight) and its physician group. Bid deadline is 24 June and the first sale hearing is timed for 11 July. Massachusetts is the most contentious of the states Steward operated in, with state regulators taking the most actions against the company. Part 2 is the Florida and Texas asset sale, timed for a bid deadline of 12 August and first sale hearing of 22 August.
  • The US Department of Justice filed an objection 30 May to the sale, stating that it does not allow enough time for their regulatory review of the physician group sale to UnitedHealth Group’s Optum [TTA 18 Apr] and insisting that it must be reviewed before any sale. This effectively holds up the Part 1 sale. FierceHealthcare
  • The other spanner in the works for the DOJ is that Steward is flat out of money to run their hospital and practice assets. Without additional funds, on 14 June they will be broke, busted, skint by two Fridays from now. Steward’s lenders were before Judge Lopez yesterday (4 June) to try working that out. Current debtor-in-possession (DIP) Medical Properties Trust, which put up $75 million, won’t put up any more money until assets are sold. Other lenders want to put up only limited amounts of money. To lure lenders, Judge Lopez approved an emergency motion on Monday to permit a “commitment fee” offer of up to $6.75 million to third-party lenders and up to $750,000 to reimburse one or more lenders for expenses incurred during due diligence. Healthcare Dive. Will that attract another DIP? Only time, and not a lot of it, will tell.

In happier news, there are fundings for two health tech companies:

  • Sword Health announced a $130 million round in an unlabeled mix of primary and secondary sale. Their total funding is now $340 million, with lead from Khosla Ventures. Valuation is up to $3 billion, up 50% from its Series D valuation. The funding announcement was made in conjunction with a product announcement by the digital/remote MSK therapy company for Phoenix, the AI Care Specialist, which will be integrated across their entire offerings. Release
  • Eko Health’s Series D raised $41 million from ARTIS Ventures, Highland Capital Partners, NTTVC, and Questa Capital. Eko’s device and platform enhance the early detection of cardiac and pulmonary diseases during physical exams. Most recently, the FDA cleared Eko’s Low EF detection AI [TTA 5 Apr]. The new funding will be used for US expansion and expansion into key international markets, supported by new strategic investments from Double Point Ventures in the U.S., Singapore-based global investor EDBI (the corporate investment arm of the Singapore Economic Development Board), and LG Technology Ventures, backed by the LG Group of South Korea. Cardiac detection powered by AI are ‘perfect together’, at least for investors. Release, Axios

Mid-week roundup: Wisconsin’s Marshfield Clinic zeros out telehealth staff; Komodo Health lays off 9%; epharmacy Medly’s Ch. 11, PharmEasy layoffs; OneStudyTeam releases 25%

December 15, 2022 | by

Year-end brings reckonings and reorganizations….and may leave you feeling like Pepper.

Marshfield Clinic, located in rural north central Wisconsin, eliminated its 18-person telehealth department on 1 December. It is not clear from reports whether telehealth is being eliminated (HISTalk) or whether this is being maintained by current IT staff. This follows news of ongoing financial difficulties in this network of 12 community and rural hospitals and 65 clinics. In August, they renegotiated some loans in the wake of losing $25 million that month–and their CFO departed. The health system is also in the throes of replacing a 30-year-old homegrown EHR with Cerner. Like most rural hospital systems, Marshfield has been keelhauled between increasing wage and supply costs plus the ending of CARES Act subsidies. It has had ongoing merger discussions with Minnesota’s Essentia Health. WSAW-TV 7 (Wausau WI)

Recently fast-growing Komodo Health is laying off 9%, or 78, staff.  The layoffs were positioned as a ‘restructuring’ to remaining employees. Interestingly, Komodo has about 40 positions recently posted and listed as open on LinkedIn, not including its CFO who is departing at end of this year.

Komodo is reportedly planning to IPO in 2023. In early November, it completed a structured equity infusion of $200 million from Coatue and Dragoneer. Reportedly, Komodo’s annual recurring revenue is $150 million but is not yet profitable. Last March in its Series E, it was valued at a rich $3.3 billion. 

Komodo is in the complex analytics business of creating data maps out of de-identified patient data. From this, they create software applications that reveal patient behaviors, can guide treatment, highlight care gaps, and, in their words, ‘reduce the global burden of disease’. Like mapping patient health journeys, everyone agrees it is valuable, but then debates on how to apply it. Is it the whole truth and nothing but? Or are my patients different? Whether strapped health systems and health plans see that Komodo’s applications are necessary, given their in-house data, with the knock-on cost of integrating it into their systems, is entirely another question that influences Komodo’s growth. TechCrunch, FierceHealthcare, Mobihealthnews  

Two epharmacy operations have run into significant financial difficulties.

  • Brooklyn’s Medly filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization on 9 December, closing 20 stores. A scrappy upstart founded in 2017 that grew from a storefront in Brooklyn to over 20 physical locations in New York, New Jersey, and Philadelphia plus four same-day prescription delivery centers, they went through a cash crunch in August that derailed their filling prescriptions for close to one month. Precipitating this was their purchase of Boulder-based integrative pharmacy Pharmaca in late 2021 to add 21 locations in 20 markets across nine states, first-half losses of $35 million, and failure to obtain over the summer a $100 million loan. Medly owes about $121 million plus $47 million in trade debt, unpaid salaries, and other unsecured debt. A bidder, MedPharmaca Holdings Inc., will have an opening bid of $18.5 million at a bankruptcy auction for almost all of Medly’s assets, including the Pharmaca stores.

A complication–employees are also suing the company in a class action lawsuit for mass layoffs. 1,100 of 1,900 employees were not given up to 90 days written notice, as required by Federal and NY State Worker Adjustment and Retraining (WARN) Acts. WARN act notices were posted after the layoffs, according to the lawsuit. Employees also lost salary, commissions, bonuses, accrued holiday pay, and 401(k) contributions. Oddly, their website lists about 20 open positions, but this Editor is sure that is due to the website manager also being laid off.  FierceHealthcare, Boulder Daily Camera, Digital Health Business

  • Nearly 8,000 miles away, PharmEasy of Mumbai, India has laid off an undisclosed number of people in a second round of layoffs, primarily in product technology, quality analytics, and support verticals. Their problems, reported in India’s Inc42, center on mounting losses, a funding crunch, and a shelved IPO. India’s Business Standard reported that the layoffs will go into the hundreds. PharmEasy is an online store covering most of India that delivers everything from medications and lab tests to doctor referrals and Dettol. 

And last in this (depressing) roundup is Boston’s OneStudyTeam’s 25% layoff of 160 employees with the usual “restructure our team going into 2023” and “streamline operations” statements, despite being used by 70% of biopharma companies.  OneStudyTeam has a clinical trial workflow platform that enrolls and manages patients. As part of clinical trials holding company Reify Health, it is a sister company to Care Access, a decentralized research organization (DRO). In April, Reify added $220 million in Series E funding for $479.6 million in total, increasing its valuation to $4.8 billion. Mobihealthnews, Crunchbase

The Theranos Story, ch. 43: Walgreens settles, $54 M in cash draining away

June 26, 2017 | by
[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/jacobs-well-texas-woe1.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]While your Editor was on leave last week, it appears that Theranos may have grasped the thorn of Walgreens Boots Alliance’s lawsuit and settled. The Wall Street Journal (subscriber access only, largely reported on Fox Business) reported that Theranos told investors of a tentative settlement with Walgreens for less than $30 million. 

Walgreens’ lawsuit, filed last year, was intended to recoup their $140 million investment in the company and store location payments. It surprised many observers that Walgreens would be content with 21 cents returned for every dollar of its investment, but since the original contribution took place over several years from 2010, much of this has likely been written down on Walgreens’ books as adjustments for bad debt. 

But this seeming win for Theranos further rips the veil off their dire financial situation. Theranos also told investors recently that it is down to $54 million in cash, according to the WSJ/Fox Business. This is much reduced from their last report of $150 million in March [ch. 41]. With a monthly burn of $10 million a month, this would leave $120-130 million if the March estimate was correct. Part of the settlements, including Walgreens, may be covered by insurance policies. However, what has transpired since then may further account for the discrepancy.

  • In May, Theranos settled with Partner Fund Management (PFM) for an undisclosed amount which WSJ sources estimated at $40-50 million. They sought to claw back their $96 million investment. (more…)