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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23andMe sold to Regeneron for $256M in court-supervised bankruptcy, sans Lemonaid. And is it worth it? (Updated 27 May for delisting)

May 21, 2025 | by

Most of 23andMe bought for a lot more than one could have thought–and why? Yesterday, the board of 23andMe confirmed that they have a court-approved definitive agreement for the sale of their core genomics units to Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc., a publicly traded (Nasdaq) biotech company based in Tarrytown, New York. The purchase price of $256 million includes the Personal Genome Service (PGS) and Total Health and Research Services business lines–but not Lemonaid. 23andMe will be operated as a wholly owned direct or indirect subsidiary.

The asset auction was completed on 16 May. The acquisition by Regeneron remains subject to approval by the US Bankruptcy Court for the Eastern District of Missouri, approval under the Hart-Scott-Rodino (HSR) Act, and customary closing conditions. The bankruptcy court will hold the approval hearing on 17 June. With the court’s and HSR approvals, the closing is anticipated to be sometime in Q3 this year, which is fairly rapid.

What didn’t sell to Regeneron or anyone else was Lemonaid, their DTC telehealth/prescribing business. It will be wound down “in an orderly manner, subject to and in accordance with the agreement” according to 23andMe’s press release. The lack of an approved bid for Lemonaid is puzzling, given the popularity of DTC telediagnosis and teleprescribing of various remedies stimulated by GLP-1 based weight loss. Perhaps Lemonaid’s business (or lack thereof), never reported by itself, along with its 2021 acquisition for an inflated $400 million ($100 million cash/$300 million in now-worthless stock), contributed. According to early April reports, Nucleus Genomics was interested in Lemonaid, to combine it with their own genetics marketing to add treatment to the ‘one and done’ of genetics testing, roughly along the lines of 23andMe’s original vision.  Nucleus had made a pass at 23andMe in 2024 but never got beyond the talking stage. [TTA 3 Apr]

Required in the Regeneron sale and otherwise agreed are:

  • Adherence to data privacy policies both under 23andMe’s privacy policy and ‘applicable law’. Presumably that also adheres to FTC chairman Andrew Ferguson’s statement re privacy and data security.
  • A court-appointed, independent Consumer Privacy Ombudsman. The CPO is responsible for examining the transition and the impact, if any, on consumer privacy once it is approved. Regeneron, a large and long established company, has a track record and programs in genetics research. The report is due to the court by 10 June, one week prior to the approval hearing.
  • Regeneron is offering employment to 23andMe’s remaining employees within the purchased business units. This promise may be less charitable than it seems. Two weeks ago, 23andMe filed a WARN notice with the California Employment Development Department that it plans to terminate 250 employees and close its San Francisco office by 17 June. Whether the successful sale will halt the layoffs in part or totally is not yet known. Preceding layoffs and operational closures had whittled down the employee group to an undetermined number.  SF Chronicle

Regeneron’s Aris Bara, MD, senior vice president and head of the Regeneron Genetics Center, commented on security in their statement:  “As a world leader in human genetics, Regeneron Genetics Center is committed to and has a proven track record of safeguarding the genetic data of people across the globe, and, with their consent, using this data to pursue discoveries that benefit science and society. We assure 23andMe customers that we are committed to protecting the 23andMe dataset with our high standards of data privacy, security and ethical oversight and will advance its full potential to improve human health.” Their Genetics Center has used in research deidentified data from nearly 3 million people.

Debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing continues. At the time of the Chapter 11, JMB Capital Partners had provided DIP financing of up to $35 million [TTA 28 Mar]. This continues with a second tranche of financing for an unknown amount.

Why did Regeneron make such a generous offer? What did they see? 23andMe was a company with essentially zero value, where assets and liabilities canceled each other out possibly as early as 2018 (Sergei Polevikov), three years before it went public. The only bids prior to the Chapter 11 were made by co-founder and then CEO Anne Wojcicki, with two take-private offers estimated at $12 million from her with the highest but short-lived bid of $71 million (Wojcicki with New Mountain Capital) [TTA 4 Mar]. Wojcicki, like other shareholders, has no chance of reward from this sale, unless some arrangement was made on her class of stock (purely speculative by this Editor).

The value to Regeneron is 1) more genetic data on 15 million users, minus the unknown number that deleted their data and samples as advised by multiple states or never provided consent, 2) research from terminated operations (e.g. drug discovery), and 3) survey data. 85% of 15 million users consented at the time to individual de-identified data being used for research. That research included an optional survey which added to their profiles. Once you consented to answering surveys, every time you visited the research page, you’d get questions to answer until they were all answered. How many of close to 13 million research-consenting users took the surveys? Reports deduced that deleting data and samples didn’t delete voluntary survey information.

The bottom line:  To start, Regeneron is a $66 billion company. $256 million is, basically, pocket lint. But what makes 23andMe a smart buy for them, at least on the surface?

  • 85% of 15 million users consented to have their data used for research–12.75 million. (We will leave aside the question that this was ‘meaningful consent’, as the Electronic Privacy Information Center termed it in Recorded Future News.)
  • Let’s assume that 15% took the advice of their attorneys general and deleted (or will delete) their data, or that data is somehow compromised. Subtract 1.9 million.
  • That is data on 10.85 million users–not counting the unknown amount of deidentified survey information from the data deleters that may or may not be accessible.
  • Regeneron is acquiring genetic data and some research at $23.60 per user. That raw number does not count the value of other information and research, nor of talent being acquired in the company. This Editor does not know the going rate for genetic data, but it seems inexpensive to me. 

Given that Dr. Bara and the Genetics Center have been doing research using a database of only 3 million or less, Regeneron hit a jackpot of pre-consented data. That may make Ms. Wojcicki’s prediction back in December 2024 in a CBS interview that the company would be thriving in a year and ‘transforming healthcare’ in five. It just won’t be hers anymore.

Update 27 May: 23andMe announced that will be voluntarily delisting from Nasdaq on or about 6 June. The stock was suspended from trading on 31 March, a week after it filed for bankruptcy. Oddly, Nasdaq usually files the Form 25 Notification of Delisting with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) but in this case it has not, so 23andMe is filing. CNBC, 23andMe release

This story is developing.

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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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

April 8, 2025 | by

Isn’t April a bit early for roller coaster rides?

Hinge Health may postpone its IPO. This is absolutely to no one’s surprise. Virtual MSK provider Hinge Health had filed a SEC S-1 preliminary prospectus back in mid-March [TTA 14 Mar] with few specifics, and had not committed to any dates. With Mr. Market taking multiple rides on an old-school wooden roller coaster, Hinge is dangling a postponement. Business Insider spoke with the usual Insider who said rather minimally that the company intended to start speaking with investors towards the end of April and go public in May, but now may postpone. They might still go public on this schedule if Mr. Market sees Hinge as a good alternative buy. Supposedly, they have the cash on hand and don’t need the IPO to finance the business. By this stage, there’s a gaggle of investors hungry for a partial or full exit financed by Other People’s Money on their $826 million invested to date: 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), who own 18.9% and 8.2%, may also be eager to cash in. Hinge is keeping mum as they must. This Editor’s bet is that their IPO will be no later than June. Yahoo! Finance

Rite Aid may go through the Pain of Bankruptcy yet again. Sadly, the distant third in the pharmacy/retail healthcare market is rumored to be considering another bankruptcy as not seeing a sustainable way forward as a private company. Alternatively, they are exploring selling parts of its business, though it’s hard to imagine who would buy. In the October 2023 bankruptcy, the company went from 2,000 locations and 47,000 employees to 1,300 locations, exiting entire states to concentrate where they could have some market impact. They sold Elixir, their pharmacy benefits manager, and settled with major creditors. In March 2018, they had downsized by selling 1,932 store locations for $4.38 billion to Walgreens. Like Walgreens and CVS, they are also dealing with legal liabilities from opioid-related lawsuits. Reportedly, they are being advised by Big Law firm Paul Weiss to advise on options, such as what can still be sold and what kind of bankruptcy. Wall Street Journal, Chain Drug Review, Daily Mail

The VA and Oracle have some ‘splainin’ to do to Congress. As VA has put stakes in the ground with migrating 13 VA Medical Centers from VistA to Oracle, a few Members of Congress on Veterans Affairs committees in the House and Senate have been awaiting More Information on the Electronic Health Record Modernization (EHRM) program. What they want to know are the fundamentals: costs and updated schedules. VA has not yet provided a cost update that is mandated by laws and Office of Management and Budget (OMB) directives governing major acquisition programs. The Congress members from both parties requesting the information are: Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.), Rep. Mark Takano (D-Calif.), Sen. John Boozman (R-Ark.), Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Rep. John Carter (R-Texas) and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.). Senator Moran press release

Private Eyes Are Watching You. They See Your Every Move. Mark Sanders, CEO of Superior Health Plans in Texas, a Centene health plan, admitted before the Texas House Delivery of Government Efficiency Committee that he had hired private investigators to get “background information” on lawmakers and plan members, specifically about claims, in a 26 March hearing on Medicaid procurement. The Dallas Morning News had previously uncovered examples of members who were being investigated from 2017 on, when Mr. Sanders became CEO. He testified that “investigators had done “routine” background checks into several state representatives, senators, health care providers, patients and their families and a journalist.” The state officials included Texas Land Commissioner Dawn Buckingham, then a state senator, and Southlake Republican state Rep. Giovanni Capriglione, according to documents obtained by The Dallas Morning News.  One claim denied was, according to the paper, Linda Badawo of Mesquite, Texas, and her 3-year-old son D’ashon Morris. “D’ashon, who was denied private duty nursing despite emphatic protests from Linda, his doctors and nurses, pulled his trach out and was found not breathing, as his caregivers warned he would.” Mr. Sanders called these ‘routine background checks’ and ‘general research’  no longer being done. Rep. Capriglione is now chair of the committee holding the hearings, which surely meets the Sicilian Standard of revenge as a dish best eaten cold.

Superior used a Missouri-based security company, Griffin Personnel Group, to perform these and other investigations. One investigation the committee uncovered said that Griffin attempted to obtain the divorce records of Sen. Charles Schwertner, R-Georgetown, just a few months after his wife filed in early 2019. Sen. Schwertner and Rep. Capriglione were members of budget committees at the time. Centene is HQ’d in St. Louis, Missouri.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton almost immediately announced an investigation into Centene’s practices. Centene fired Mr. Sanders within hours, stating “The conduct highlighted yesterday during the course of the Texas House Committee hearing is not reflective of our values nor is it a practice Centene’s current leadership condones. To this end, Mark Sanders is no longer with our organization.” Perceptive Readers will note the subtle ‘dig’ at the previous CEO; in 2017, Centene’s CEO for then over 20 years was Michael Neidorff, who is no longer here on this planet to defend himself. Centene is now controlled by activist investor Politan Capital.) At stake are hundreds of millions in state Medicaid contracts.

(Disclosure: this Editor worked for an ACO management services organization owned by WellCare, not Superior, acquired by Centene, and technically worked for Centene for less than one year ending in 2020.)

Breaking: 23andMe files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy–whither customer data and security? An impact similar to Theranos?

March 24, 2025 | by

The exploding plastic inevitable comes to its inevitable end. 23andMe’s board filed for a Chapter 11 bankruptcy with the Eastern District of Missouri (!) Federal bankruptcy court on Sunday night (Case 25-40976). Anne Wojcicki, CEO, 49% controlling shareholder, and board member, stepped down from the CEO position, but remains on the board. Interim CEO is Joseph Selsavage, 23andMe’s chief financial and accounting officer,  according to their SEC Form 8-K filing.

In their announcement, 23andMe will, with court approval, actively solicit asset sales over a 45 day period.

Anne Wojcicki’s final non-binding proposals on 10 and 11 March were rejected by the Special Committee of the board of directors evaluating asset sales and now the bankruptcy.

Anne Wojcicki’s statement on X early on Monday morning was of a piece with her statements as 23andMe entered its death spiral starting in 2023. “We have had many successes but I equally take accountability for the challenges we have today. There is no doubt that the challenges faced by 23andMe through an evolving business model have been real, but my belief in the company and its future is unwavering.” In her post, she also said that she would bid for assets sold by the company. 23andMe has not issued any further statement or response to their former CEO’s comments.

The Chapter 11 versus 7 filing means that 23andMe will continue to operate as it sells assets and eventually shuts. It will be up to the board–including Ms. Wojcicki–and the bankruptcy judge regarding the disposition of the company’s assets, which include teleprescriber Lemonade and the large 23andMe genetic database. Those assets and liabilities essentially cancel each other out: $100-500 million in assets and the same in liabilities, according to the filing.

And about that large genetic database–the California attorney general Rob Bonta has already advised California 23andMe registered users to delete their data and request their samples to be destroyed. However, as previous articles have discussed, your data remains–de-identified, which the AG’s statement doesn’t go into in its “reminder” (more like a press opportunity for a 2026 reelection bid?). Mercury News  See today’s update for how-tos–and experiences in deletion.

23andMe has stated that it will not change the way that consumer data is stored or safeguarded, and will continue to operate as usual through the Chapter 11 process. They published an ‘open letter’ blog for customers that positions them as finding “a partner (Editor’s emphasis) who shares our commitment to customer data privacy and allows our mission of helping people access, understand and benefit from the human genome to live on.” which is frankly, misleading.

Perhaps the Chapter 11 is saving Ms. Wojcicki from a tremendous financial mistake in buying out the rest of the common shareholders, though the filing wipes out her investment in the company. It will be interesting to see the court’s comments on the ownership of what at its peak was a $6 billion-valued public company. CNBC  

This story is developing, but has developed ‘legs’ like Theranos in terms of mainstream impact. When YouTube tarot card readers are covering it….   

Updates 25-26 March   

MedCityNews yesterday recapped the various Wojcicki-led efforts to take the company private as Readers have been following, with the interesting addition that by 10 March, at least one minority shareholder, Zentree Investments, felt slighted. Zentree then bought more Class A stock to boost its ownership stake to 13%. (I wonder how they woke up on Monday.) Unfortunately, there were no further insights on why New Mountain Capital retreated from its short-lived offer to buy 23andMe with Ms. Wojcicki that went sideways by 28 February.  (Perhaps someone found something that led to the mutual conclusion of ‘Are we crazy?’)

The first hearing before the bankruptcy court, the Debtors’ First Day Motions, will be tomorrow, Wednesday 26 March, in St. Louis before the Honorable Brian C. Walsh. 

There is no hint of a pre-packaged bankruptcy leading to a reorganization of the business in any of the materials linked below.

From the Form 8-K and the Kroll case summary (Kroll is the claims agent for the company):

  • 23andMe has agreed with a lender, JMB Capital Partners Lending, LLC, to obtain up to $35 million in a senior secured term loan credit facility (DIP Facility). The debtor-in-possession financing from JMB is to pay for the Chapter 11 administrative costs and for working capital. This is subject to the bankruptcy court’s approval.
  • Subsidiaries of 23andMe (such as Lemonaid) will continue to operate. Lemonaid Health and two pharmacy operations are listed as  debtors in the filing.
  • On 21 March, Joseph Selsalvage was paid a retention cash bonus of $500,000 for his services through 31 December this year or 23andMe’s emergence from bankruptcy, whichever is earliest. If he leaves before the end of the retention period or is terminated for cause, the entire amount will be clawed back. The only exceptions are death, disability, or departure for ‘good reason’ as defined in the retention agreement.
  • The board was increased to five members, adding Thomas B. Walper as a non-employee member of the board and the Special Committee (formed for buyers) through the 2027 shareholders meeting. He will be paid $35,000 per month. Mr. Walper is a partner at Los Angeles’ Munger, Tolles & Olson LLP and specializes in bankruptcy law.
  • Any transaction will be subject to customary regulatory approvals, including, as applicable, the Hart-Scott-Rodino Act and the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States.

From the 23andMe release:

  • The Special Committee rejected Anne Wojcicki’s final bids in the amended Schedule 13D made on 10 and 11 March.  
  • The company in the Chapter 11 will sell substantially all of its assets in a Section 363 sale.
  • Matt Kvarda, a managing director at Alvarez & Marsal, was appointed as chief restructuring officer.
  • First day motions (tomorrow) include requesting from the court authority to pay employees and certain vendors, reducing operating expenses such as real estate leases, and resolving all outstanding legal liabilities stemming from their October 2023 cyber incident.

Since 23andMe’s database includes personally identifiable information and Lemonaid stores medical information as a prescriber of various remedies, it is possible, but to be confirmed, whether Federal entities such as HHS will be involved in approvals of asset sales that have patient information. Those who submitted their tests for genetic analysis are not covered by HIPAA and in fact signed away many of their privacy rights in their submission. 

Information on deleting your user records if you used 23andMe, or you know someone who needs to know how:

Contrary to what many would like to have or to believe, 23andMe retains parts of user information after user deletion, such as: genetic information, date of birth, and gender “as required for compliance”; deletion request information “including but not limited to, your email address, account deletion request identifier, communications related to inquiries or complaints and legal agreements.”

Despite this, deleting your account is the wisest move, according to every expert this Editor has read.

Basically, you are deleting your account, revoking any research consent, and destroying any samples they may have retained. Simple, eh? Not quite! Step-by-step how-to guides are available on ZDNet (simplest) and TechCrunch (scroll to the end). This Editor cannot test as she never used 23andMe. Arundhati Parmar of MedCityNews‘ experience in attempting this process is chronicled in a LinkedIn video and on TikTok.  Expect website crashes, slow responses at best, and more than a few hitches.

New  FierceHealthcare’s Dave Muoio riffs on the data privacy issues which can be summarized as a “data stewardship crisis”. The few protections that members/users have are based on consumer protection laws. 23andMe’s privacy policy, as noted above, was explicit about the minimal protection they offered and that they had the right to access, disclose to others, and sell your genetic information:  “your Personal Information may be accessed, sold or transferred as part of that transaction and this Privacy Statement will apply to your Personal Information as transferred to the new entity. We may also disclose Personal Information about you to our corporate affiliates to help operate our services and our affiliates’ services.” Mr. Muoio reached out to experts at SOCRadar, QuantHealth, the Future of Privacy Forum, the Holland & Knight law firm, Pixel Privacy, and others. The consensus is that state and Federal safeguards are wholly inadequate.

Editor’s opinion:

23andMe’s cavalier attitude during their 2023 data breach, caused by their sloppy security (well documented by others and analyzed in our article here with previous articles linked within it) but blamed by their management on members reusing passwords, was symptomatic of a certain arrogance and attitude. By 2023, the company was already in trouble. Why would anyone believe that they’d be any less cavalier about personal genetic information?

Will this be another ‘watershed’ event like Theranos? The level of mainstream consumer media coverage the 23andMe bankruptcy has received reminds this Editor of the demise of Theranos. But here, there is no glamorous young founder in a black turtleneck jetting about and working in a Silicon Valley high-tech lab perpetrating a fraud. Here, the founder and key shareholder is a mature wealthy woman who kept a fairly low profile, the technology worked, the consumer business broke fresh consumer ground and, for its time, getting your genetic information and ancestry was a popular concept. GSK’s five year deal was completed–not renewed, but no lawsuits ensued. What was way off was its $6 billion valuation in 2021 after its SPAC and IPO.

Its faltering wasn’t news like Theranos or (for that matter) Walgreens either. The concatenation of failures along the way, save for the 2023-24 data breach/hacking which was news and drove away customers by the carload, was hardly noted at all. Yet suddenly. every one who ever dealt with 23andMe is anxious about their DNA being sold, with rumors of nefarious buyers like Bill Gates and from China popping up with notorious frequency.

We’ll see if this leads to change in genetic privacy laws and policies.

Monday roundup: Envision files Ch. 11, who’s to blame for Meta Pixel abuse?, CVS Health to shut clinical trials unit, Amino Health scoops $80M, DocGo flat but optimistic, Owlet way down in revenue

May 16, 2023 | by

What was envisioned last week came to pass for Envision Healthcare on Sunday. The hospital and physician staffing company filed for Chapter 11 reorganization five years after it was taken private by investment company KKR. At the time of that massive buyout, the value of the company was pegged at $10 billion. Things started to go south for Envision after 2020 with the pandemic drying up patient volumes for two years, with the added factors of regulations kicking in on ‘no surprise’ billing, inflation, staffing shortages, and major fights with health plans around out-of-network inflated charges plus a huge claims dispute with UnitedHealthcare [TTA 12 May]. Ironically, Envision won the main dispute with UHG; that $91 million won in arbitration in an insider’s view would have staved off the bankruptcy this year.

KKR will apparently lose its $3.5 billion equity in the company as $8 billion in debt restructuring takes place. What’s before the court is that the Envision staffing operation will be separated from the AmSurg surgical clinics. Senior lenders will have their debt rearranged into equity into one or the other company. Junior lenders, bondholders, and KKR will receive zero, or as we say locally, bupkis. It’s envisioned (sic) that the restructuring will take about three to four months.  Financial Times, Envision release

The hospitals, that’s who! If you believe Meta, it’s the hospitals that abused those poor Pixels, making them do things against their wishes to tattle all sorts of PHI and PII to Big Bad Meta which sends patients all those Nasty Intrusive Ads. Meta is being sued by parties from the ACLU to patients in class action lawsuits on how the Pixel was used on hospital patient portals and scheduling websites. Meta’s argument is that the health systems’ developers could but did not control how the ad trackers were used and that “Meta did not implement or configure” the Pixels used on the health systems’ websites. In fact, Meta claims that they have filtering tools that screen out sensitive data and that would alert the developer. “It’s ultimately the developer, not Meta, that controls the code on its own website and chooses what information to send,” according to the May 5 filing in that busy US District Court of Northern California.

This could influence outcomes in the multitude of lawsuits being filed against health systems like Kaiser Permanente, UCSF Health, and LCMC Health in New Orleans plus Willis-Knighton Health in northwest Louisiana (Healthcare Dive). If the District Court finds that Meta, and possibly other ad trackers such as those from Google, Twitter, or Bing were not inherently liable for personal health data violations that monetized PHI, then the health systems are 100% on the hook for the data breaches (or ‘wiretapping’ in a creative use of terminology). It also makes the potential paydays possibly less lucrative–in the eyes of this Editor, as Meta and Google have far deeper pockets than any ol’ health system. SC Media, Paubox   The Meta Pixel backstory here

CVS Health to shut its clinical trials unit by December 2024. CVS, like Walgreens and Walmart, jumped into the clinical trials business during the Covid-19 pandemic, seeing a need in the market with pharmaceutical companies and a ready-made, 100 million deep diverse base of patients among their pharmacy users. CVS cited to Healthcare Dive that the shutdown was to better concentrate on core business. Current active trials on the website include narcolepsy, rheumatoid arthritis, and kidney health. No disclosure as to profitability but CVS has a lot to digest with new buys Signify Health and Oak Street Health.

Amino Health’s $80 million funding is a bright spot in this sideways spring. With a digital guidance model that works with employers and health plans to help 1.6 million members navigate their care, their new funding will be used for technology scaling. Equity and debt financing were led by Transformation Capital, which will be joining the Amino board, and Oxford Finance LLC. Amino is being boosted by the Federal Transparency in Coverage (TIC) Rule which makes pricing disclosure a key part of plan navigation. Amino originally started with a direct-to-consumer model but shifted to enterprise, including brokers and third-party administrators. Amino’s total raise is now $125 million (Crunchbase). Mobihealthnews, Amino release

DocGo’s two services, mobile health and medical transport, essentially swapped revenue this quarter in a better-than-average picture. Their mobile health services area in Q1 fell 19% to $72.9 million from $90.1 million in Q1 2022, while transportation services grew 44% to $40.1 million from $27.8 million in Q1 2022. This added to total revenue of $113 million with a net loss of $3.9 million. Their 2023 revenue guidance remains at $500-$510 million with adjusted EBITDA guidance of $45-$50 million. 

What’s promising here is that it’s a SPAC that didn’t crack like practically every other. DocGo pointed out in their release that they have a backlog of $205 million in total contract value over approximately three years and they have doubled their RFPs. Their patient target for 2023 is 50,000. Share price today on Nasdaq ticked up to $8.77. Considering their high last year of $11.08, they are not doing badly in this time at all. Mobihealthnews .We last saw DocGo providing mobile clinics in a Tennessee pilot with Dollar General [TTA 24 Jan] which now is tied in with the state of Tennessee, plus a pilot in NY and NJ with Redirect Health. They provide services in 26 states and the UK.  

This Editor is trying to be as cheerful as the baby at left about baby sock/monitor Owlet, which has had a rough ride in the past two years. Their revenue dropped to $10.7 million in Q1 2023 versus $12 million in Q4 2022 and $21.5 million in Q1 2022. Owlet ended 2021 with a nastygram from the FDA that pulled their original Smart Sock off the market [TTA 4 Dec 2021] but rebounded early in 2022 with the Dream Sock and Dream Duo [TTA 16 Feb 2022] that avoided the claims that sent them into 510(k) Marketing Neverland.  Still, they were delisted by the NYSE in December 2022. On the positive side, Owlet wound up 2022 with $69.2 million in revenue and a good-sized private placement of $30 million in February [TTA 18 Mar]. It has submitted to FDA for two products, including the steep de novo climb on an enhancement to the Dream Sock. Now a much smaller company than it was last year, they have reduced operational expenses to $15.1 million from $24.1 million in Q4 2022 to get to breakeven by end of this year and to be relisted on the NYSE in the future. Having followed them since the early ‘telehealth for the bassinet set’ days of 2012-2013, this Editor wishes them bonne chance. Owlet release, Mobihealthnews

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…)