Surprise! HLTH conference group sold to UK’s Hyve Group Limited

HLTH sold one week after signature Las Vegas event. (That was fast!) The buyer is London’s Hyve Group Limited, an international event organizer across retail, marketing (POSSIBLE, acquired in July), education tech, fintech, fashion, and other manufacturing, mining, and engineering-related industries. HLTH is Hyve’s first conference in healthcare. HLTH as an organizer also encompasses HLTH Europe coming up in Amsterdam 16-19 June 2025 and for digital health, ViVE in Nashville 16-19 February 2025.

According to Hyve’s release and Trade Show News Network , HLTH is their #1 conference by revenue, with ViVE not far behind at #4. ViVE will continue to include the annual conference of CHIME, which split from HIMSS before their acquisition by Informa). It is also Hyve’s second acquisition from HLTH founder/CEO Jonathan Weiner, who sold ShopTalk to Hyve in December 2019. Weiner will remain at the helm of HLTH for the foreseeable future along with 80 employees in their New York, Dublin, and London offices. The acquisition also gives UK-based Hyve a larger footprint in the highly competitive North American and US trade show market, and introduces them to a fresh group of new contacts at major players such as Google, Meta, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Amazon, and providers such as Mayo Clinic.

Acquisition terms were not disclosed. Surprisingly not covered by the healthcare business press, except for HIStalk 30 Oct to which we tip our hat. Also Trade Show Executive

Some thoughts on the takeaways from HLTH

HLTH, which was in Las Vegas last week (19-22 Oct), has moved from an ‘also-ran’ to a lead dog in healthcare conferences for the innovation oriented set, along with sister conference ViVE (with CHIME) for digital health in February. They offer an alternative to the broadly tech-focused CES and the HIMSS leviathan, which seems to have lost a bit of its mojo since HIMSS turned the management keys over to Informa

Like all industry meetings, there were the usual rash of announcements, panel meeting interpretations, and tea leaves reading by reporters on the scene. Both MedCity News and Healthcare Dive covered HLTH. MedCity News’ Katie Adams had seven hot takes resulting from conversations she had with various leaders from health systems, digital health, and VCs/investors. They were candid and as she put it, ‘refreshingly honest’. Your Editor’s comments follow.

AI could be worsening health disparities. This came from FDA commissioner Robert Califf who believes that health systems are using AI to segregate profitable patients from those who are not. “What we need is for AI to bring up the people who are currently disadvantaged.” Absent any proof at this stage that health systems are actually doing this while they are in at best early stages of attempting to integrate AI into an absurdly complicated network of systems without breaking them, this strikes me as Chicken Little-ism and Finger Wagging. 

Retail companies should stop trying to be something they’re not. A hospital CEO is quoted as stating that retailers are trying to apply their model to the healthcare space because healthcare delivery is wholesale. This deduction has some truth and then veers into the woods. Yes, Walgreens and CVS tried to apply a transactional model to primary care and got into Big Trouble. From the customer (patient) perspective, that person wants to get in, get fixed or examined–and get out with maximum speed and convenience. This didn’t happen. Will Amazon, a far bigger retailer, pull this off with One Medical brick-and-mortars, or run it as a membership ‘division’ linked with Amazon Prime? Their building of relationships with 20+systems like Cleveland Clinic for specialty care referrals (and in return primary care referrals) indicates they have the flexibility that Walgreens and CVS lack.

And since when is healthcare wholesale? It surely isn’t to the end user, the patient. This mindset is puzzling.

Strict abortion laws are likely already resulting in economic consequences. It seems that states with few to no limits on abortion are attracting OB/GYN residents and practices versus states with restrictions. This is a sad commentary on both the state of medical practice and public perception in dealing with human lives. There are alternatives.

Many investors have realized they backed products, not companies. The bloated investments and valuations that we saw in 2021 and 2022 (in actuality, 2020 into early 2022) could not be sustained. Well, yes, and the bubble burst last year. There was more to this. Easy IPOs through SPACs and the Fear of Missing Out (FOMO) led otherwise sensible retailers into buying brick-and-mortar primary care practices as extensions of their stores, investors into another iteration of ‘value-based care’, copycat virtual mental health providers, and digital health businesses that were essentially sinkholes, like Babylon Health. The companies may have had a good product or a nucleus of same. Then investors woke up and started to think about how impossible their exits were.

Healthcare leaders should remember they’re in the customer service industry. Exactly the opposite of the ‘wholesale’ delivery model. Patients are customers–but a special type of customer.

Next year, exit activity will likely still be lifeless in the digital health space. “Private equity firms might start acquiring more healthcare businesses.” Agreed. We’ll be seeing a lot more mergers of convenience to rationalize services and in some cases, survival–below the line of DOJ/FTC scrutiny.

We need to stop treating AI like a buzzword. In this view, it’s a tool that can transform healthcare delivery and make it better for both providers and consumers in speed and efficiency. In this Editor’s view, AI still needs to prove it can do this in a way that it is trustworthy, secure, and easily integrated into present systems.

Healthcare Dive highlighted a report by Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and a Monday panel discussion on the decline of healthcare sector funding after the highs it reached during the Covid pandemic. It was a ‘sugar high’ that drew in non-healthcare sector “tourist” investors. Even at that time, it was not considered sustainable. Now the funding buzzwords are ‘pruning’ and ‘consolidation’. Investors are also looking for senior leaders with financial acumen and for companies that can create a fast path to profitability. SVB’s Megan Scheffel said that “One opportunity is for private equity firms to buy up multiple companies to create a platform” and create synergies. However, as this Editor has previously noted, this is yet another area where the DOJ and FTC are also scrutinizing. 

Big Tech–Microsoft, Google, Amazon, GE Healthcare and Nvidia–also saw opportunities at HLTH to promote their AI offerings, emphasizing use cases and partnerships with health systems, to solve a range of problems in documentation and scheduling, creating platform solutions customized to a specific health system. The big questions out there are readiness of clinicians to use the tools and how to offer them to systems responsibly. The tech providers do step back from telling health systems what to do. As Google’s Greg Corrado put it in the Healthcare Dive article, “It does need to be pioneered by healthcare systems that are willing and able to do the research on the ground, and not every health system can do that.” Exactly, as well as the implementation research and modifications.

One last thought–it was surprising how little news was generated at HLTH, versus before and after.

Walgreens’ transformation continues: new CEO enters, CIO exits, launches Virtual Healthcare in 9 states

This week of HLTH has not been short of Big News from WBA, perhaps cleverly to ace out CVS, Amazon (facing retail monopoly charges from the FTC and 17 states), and Walmart. Regaining the lost momentum at Walgreens Boots Alliance will be a heavy lift.

Enter Tim Wentworth as CEO from retirement. Mr. Wentworth formerly helmed Express Scripts, coming on after that company’s acquisition of pharmacy benefits manager Medco. When Express Scripts was acquired by Cigna in 2018, he headed their health services area, now Evernorth, retiring from there at the end of 2021. He is exactly what executive chair Stefano Pessina (and the board) ordered–a younger executive (63) with CEO experience, energy, through-the-ranks background, and deep, deep experience in pharmacy management, payers, and healthcare. To CNBC on Tuesday, Mr. Wentworth said, “What made me decide to come back was a chance to lead this iconic brand and company at a time when it’s not in a steady state. It’s a massive platform…they touch almost 10 million people a day.” Plus undoubtedly an offer hard to refuse! He starts on 23 October. Walgreens replaced Roz Brewer, who departed 31 August [TTA 19 Sep], in record time. Her interim replacement, former pharma exec Ginger Graham, returns to her lead independent director spot on the WBA board. WBA release

Walgreens recently missed earnings estimates for its Q3 ending in May [TTA 28 June] with underperformance problems in retail consumer sales and urgent care CityMD. They have been selling peripheral businesses and investments, with plans to lay off 10% (500) of its workforce. It doesn’t help the bottom line that Walgreens last month settled a class action lawsuit about its long-ago Theranos clinics in Arizona for a tidy $44 million.

There’s trouble from the streets to the suites right now. Pharmacy workers walked out on 300 Walgreens locations this past Monday through Wednesday. Their big issues are short-staffing and overwork. Demands are, according to an organizer talking to the AP: to improve transparency about shifting hours and schedules; to set aside training hours for new team members; and to adjust tasks and expectations at each location based on staffing levels. They are also organizing for union representation. Walgreens isn’t alone in this–CVS has also faced pharmacy worker walkouts. Fortune  At the executive level, chief information officer Hsiao Wang left suddenly on 2 October after one year after a recent leave of absence. His departure was confirmed by Walgreens to industry publication PYMNTS. Neal Sample, a consultant and former CIO at Northwestern Mutual with experience at Express Scripts, will be stepping in on an interim basis. Retail Dive. This follows on Walgreens’ chief financial officer James Kehoe July departure after five years to join financial services firm FIS in August. Mr. Wentworth’s HR experience will come in handy on these issues.

On a positive note, WBA announced Monday at HLTH that its Walgreens Virtual Healthcare will start up in nine states later this month. Via their website, Virtual Healthcare will provide on-demand consults with providers on common medical conditions and for prescriptions. It will be available in California, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina, Ohio, and Texas, which represent almost half of the US population as well as Walgreens’ pharmacy customer base. It will be primarily clinician chat-based, with synchronous video visits for select conditions. Conditions treated include seasonal allergies, COVID-19 or flu, erectile dysfunction, hair loss, birth control, and other common health needs. Cash only–$33 for chat with video visits $36 to $75, which puts it in line with Amazon Clinic’s cash charge of $35 and $75 respectively. Insurance may come in the future. WBA has had telehealth through VillageMD locations and has actually had tele-dermatology service since 2016. Walgreens’ move, though, is a little tardy given Amazon Clinic’s national rollout after privacy issues delayed it on 1 August [TTA 1 Aug] and CVS’ Virtual Primary Care nationally with Amwell a year ago [TTA 12 Aug 22]. Healthcare Dive

More thoughts on the pending sale of the HIMSS Global Conference

In the absence of a real announcement, speculation has been everywhere on the not-yet-done deal between HIMSS and Informa. As reported last week [TTA 27 July], HIMSS will be selling the annual Global Conference to Informa PLC, the largest B2B trade show operator on the Planet Earth. There has been no communication as of this writing from HIMSS to members or chapters, nor any announcements in HIMSS Media. The only corporate confirmation came through Informa PLC’s H1 financial report.

From LinkedIn, Tom Foley, who is the head of GenieMD telehealth and also hosts a podcast called The Virtual Shift via HealthcareNOWRadio and Answers Media Network (headed by Roberta Mullin and Carol Flagg, with whom this Editor worked some years back) had two posts on the pending ‘exclusivity to acquire’. In the later post, he addresses the fact that HIMSS has already been booked by most exhibitors as HIMSS, not as a ‘third-party conference’, and asks for market responses. The earlier post is about the ‘announcement’ and is largely the same as his comment on TTA’s original article. Other than these and spinoff posts from other commenters, Other than we Happy Few, LinkedIn posts have been on the QT and very hush-hush on the subject. Interesting as so many on LinkedIn are HIMSS, HLTH, ViVE and other health conference exhibitors and attendees.

Which leads this Editor to turn to the pointed, yeasty HIStalk where their Editors have dug around HIMSS and turned up some interesting things. This Editor encourages Readers to go to the source articles linked below for their analysis. I will add some points and commentary to each, especially on the Form 990s:

  • Monday Morning Update 7/31/23 speculates on HIMSS’ financials reported in their Form 990 as a 501 (c)(6) non-profit. Their last FY filing is for fiscal 2020. Since HIStalk does not, here is the link to that Form 990 2020 in Candid, a public database on non-profits (the former Guidestar and Foundation Center). On the organization page, click on the Form 990 tab for the first 2020 dropdown, which is for their FY starting 1 July 2019 to 30 June 2020. In 2020, HIMSS had total revenue of $28.7 million, a severe drop from 2019 where revenue was over $111.9 million (line 12). Their expenses were over $82.6 million for an operating loss of over $53.9 million. This represents the effects of the cancellation of the 2020 conference, which in 2019 ‘conferences and meetings’ reported $42.8 million in revenue and in 2020 only $1.9 million. Using this information and from Informa’s track record, HIStalk does some calculations on projected sales prices.
  • This Editor also examined the second 2020 dropdown, which is a six-month first-half report from 1 July to 31 December 2020. Revenues rose to $65.1 million with expenses of $42.6 million for an operating profit of $17.9 million. Conference revenue was a tiny $8.7 million but higher than the full year. HIMSS under a joint Health 2.0 banner had a Middle East-based virtual conference in November and HIMSS Media promoted some ‘HIMSS20’ content as digital sessions.
  • News 8/2/23 has reader comments on a HIMSS initiative for vendors called Accelerate, which has apparently been inactive for some time, executive salaries, and speculation on why the delay on the Form 990s.

What remains problematic is HIMSS’ future involvement, if any, in a conference that has been branded as HIMSS for over 50 years and has already been sold into as HIMSS’. How will Informa handle that? Invite HIMSS to sponsor it? Then again, what will be HIMSS’ future as a member-based society without a conference and with a subsidiary, HIMSS Media, that makes money off sponsorships both pre and post and content during the conference? It seems that both buyer and seller would benefit from a shared relationship.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

Mid-week corral: CVS closes Signify Health; Bertolini to lead Oscar Health; ViVE highlights from Wellvana, AWS, Everly Health; Better Therapeutics lays off 35%, CoverMyMeds 815

CVS closed its acquisition of Signify Health today. This $8 billion transaction ($30.50/share) adds a network of more than 10,000 clinicians nationally, including the 170-provider Medicare ACO group originally organized by Caravan Health. It was beneficial to the major shareholder group, New Mountain Capital and their investors, which owned 60% of Signify and have a tidily profitable exit. The CVS press release stated that Signify would continue to operate as a ‘payer-agnostic’ business within CVS Health. As earlier stated, Kyle Armbrester, Signify’s CEO, will continue to lead the business. Also Healthcare Dive (updated)

The bulldog engineer of the CVS-Aetna merger, Mark Bertolini, now tapped to head Oscar Health. Bertolini, the former chairman/CEO of Aetna (center), in the past three years since his unwilling (according to him) departure from the CVS board of directors [TTA 6 Feb 2020], has not been idle. From 2022, he was co-CEO of asset management firm Bridgewater Associates, and in the last 18 months, he has been a ‘strategic advisor’ to insurtech Oscar. Now he moves to the CEO office effective next Monday (3 April) and joins their board. Co-founder Mario Schlosser (left) steps back from CEO to president of technology, reporting to Bertolini, and joins the board. Joshua Kushner, a co-founder and major investor (Thrive Capital), as well as executive chairman of the board, is on the right in the leadership picture supplied with the Business Wire release.

Once a skeptic of insurtechs like Oscar, Bertolini by his statements is now a true believer. In a call with investors on Tuesday, he cited their technology that included digitization, individualization, and personal care. A major factor is that consumers are more comfortable since the pandemic with telehealth. Oscar was a pioneer in offering free telehealth with their plans.

Investors have pressed Oscar to get over to a profitable state by next year. Oscar has not been profitable since its 2012 founding by Schlosser, Kushner, and the long-departed Kevin Nazemi. In the time since Bertolini joined as an advisor, they have largely shed their Medicare Advantage business and concentrated on their individual market and ACA plans, which have seen huge growth along with overall record enrollment on the exchanges. But Oscar paused on new ACA signups in Florida and hauled back its glitchy and over-featured +Oscar tech platform [TTA 24 April 2021], which is now available unbundled. 2022 financials were substantially in the red with a loss of $610 million on revenue of $4 billion (Oscar release). However, the news of Bertolini moving to Oscar’s helm was met with a round of investor confidence. Share price moved from Monday’s close of $3.41 to $6.70 midday Tuesday and has largely stayed in the $6.00 range. Oscar release on Business Wire, FierceHealthcare, Healthcare Dive, YahooFinance

ViVE, the digital health spinoff of HLTH, concluded its annual meeting in Nashville this year with an announced attendance of 7,500, including 650 startups, 425 investors, and 330 hosted buyers. The energetic start on Sunday was sadly marked on Monday with the shooting at the local Covenant School where six were killed. Impressions from an anonymous attendee to HISTalk today were that most of the sessions were panels (which gets more people up front, but can be sunk by a dull moderator) versus individual speakers (who can either be fabulous or duds). Content could have been more inspiring and, as usual, many speakers are throwing out headlines for those in media to write about. This Editor has read relatively little so far but more will come this week. Highlights so far:

  • Nashville-based Wellvana Health, which provides technology for healthcare providers and health systems to implement value-based care, raised a stunning Series B of $84 million for a total raise of $140 million. Heritage Group and Valtruis co-led the investment with participation from Memorial Hermann Health System. The funding will be used to expand from its present 22 states and over 100,000 lives. Their current agreements are with multiple payers, Medicare Advantage, and three national contracts for the 2023 ACO REACH model. FierceHealthcare, Mobihealthnews
  • Everly Health is moving beyond its current home testing kits to integrate lab testing with telehealth. This will cover certain conditions, such as COVID-19, flu, sexually transmitted infections (STIs), urinary tract infections (UTIs), thyroid, weight management, and men’s and women’s health. Cost is out of pocket $59 and if insurance covers, $10-50. In its weight management program, Everly will offer GLP-1 drugs, a class of drugs that includes Ozempic and Wegovy, to qualified patients. FierceHealthcare
  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced 23 startups for their 2023 Healthcare Accelerator: Global Cohort for Workforce. This year’s accelerator cohort is finding solutions for the healthcare industry in three core areas for healthcare employees: retention, deployment, and training. More on the accelerator here and the list here, including 10 from the UK. FierceHealthcare
  • Health systems are demanding a quick ROI on their digital expenditures, according to a panel of CIOs and digital officers from Providence, Allegheny Health Network, Sutter Health, and Adventist Health. It should not be a surprise to anyone that they are looking for returns in the next year or so–yet are pushing forward with investments because of inflation and increased workforce pressures. FierceHealthcare

Another digital cognitive behavioral therapy trims. Better Therapeutics is reportedly releasing 35% of staff, or 15 people, in yet another cutback of another company in the formerly high, wide, and flying sector. Better specializes in prescription digital therapeutics to address cardiometabolic diseases such as diabetes. Better SPAC’d in 2021 [TTA 8 April 2021] hitting the market at $10.25 and currently trading on Nasdaq at about $0.60. According to their SEC filing, they are trying to stretch remaining cash to reach potential FDA marketing authorization and subsequent commercial launch of BT-001 in Type 2 diabetes. Better is in the same jam as competitors Pear Therapeutics and Akili Interactive, both paring back to the bone and looking for buyers, according to Mobihealthnews. Also LayoffsTracker

CoverMyMeds, a division of healthcare giant McKesson, is also laying off 815 by mid-April and closing its Scottsdale, Arizona office. The Arizona office has the company’s patient support center; workers there will be given the option to move to Columbus, Ohio. Other offices including Columbus (Franklinton) and Atlanta will be condensed and space leased out. CoverMyMeds automates the prior authorization process for medications for payers. What is unusual is that the company, bought for about $1 billion in 2017, accounted for $1.1 billion of McKesson’s $70.5 billion in 2022 revenue, and $136 million in McKesson profit–the most profitable of their four divisions. Columbus Dispatch, Layoffs.fyi

Mid-week news briefs: House members’ ‘grave concerns’ on two deaths tied to Oracle Cerner VA rollout; care.ai’s $27M funding; Clear Arch’s new mobile RPM platform; digital health investment in rough times

A pre-Thanksgiving news roundup in this short week.

More miseries for Oracle Cerner’s VA rollout. This week, three House members sent a letter to the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA). After a 2 September visit to the Chalmers P. Wylie VA Ambulatory Care Center in Columbus, Ohio and interviewing the staff, they determined that the Cerner Millenium EHR as currently in use possibly led to the deaths of two veteran patients. The deaths were due to 1) hypoxia after an antibiotic ordered for mail delivery was never tracked nor received, leading to a decline in the patient’s condition; and 2) alcohol withdrawal symptoms after a patient’s missed appointment was lost in the EHR and not rescheduled, leading to his decline and death several months later. The three Representatives are asking Denis McDonough, the Department secretary, for answers on the processes and problems that led to this, and more. They are Mike Bost, R-Ill., Mike Carey, R-Ohio, and Troy Balderson, R-Ohio. Becker’s

care.ai, a system that uses sensor-based AI for care facilities, secured $27 million in venture funding from Crescent Cove Advisors. care.ai’s sensors and their Smart Care Facility Platform are currently used in 1,500 facilities in the US to automate, monitor, and streamline clinical and operational workflows in hospitals, skilled nursing facilities, and assisted living facilities. care.ai plans to use the funding from Crescent Cove Advisors to build on their ongoing operations and deliver ambient intelligence to healthcare. Release, Mobihealthnews

Clear Arch Health is introducing a new RPM mobile app, Clear Arch Mobile, as an alternative to its current tablet-based system. It connects via Bluetooth to devices and is based on the LifeStream Clinical Monitoring Dashboard by enhancing security (with two-factor authentication) and simplifying the collection and transmission of patient data for clinician assessment and intervention, as needed. LifeStream was acquired by Clear Arch earlier this year with their buy of Life Care Solutions. Clear Arch is a division of MobileHelp. Both were acquired by Advocate Aurora Enterprises in April. Release (PDF)

How to cope with the transition from easy funding to showing investors that they are squeezing every dime? That was the topic of a roundtable of investors at HLTH last week. One major problem was that the 2020-21 influx of capital boosted valuations to unrealistic and unsustainable levels, leading to unrealistic expectations for growth and moving into businesses that weren’t core. The advice was bracing from investor luminaries such as Glen Tullman of 7Wire Ventures/Transcarent, Emily Melton of Threshold Ventures, Andrew Adams of Oak HC/FT; and Krishna Yeshwant of Google Ventures.

  • Don’t focus on valuation. Focus on how much capital your enterprise needs to the next phase of inflection, minimize dilution, and set yourself up for the next up round.
  • Refocus and reprioritize, making the most of cash resources on hand
  • Have a plan to get to profitability, not just growth
  • Even more depressing news: the downturn is expected to continue through 2023 into 2024 — make cash last into 2025

Growth areas in healthcare they identified will be familiar: mental health, senior care and primary care –one is not, the Medicaid space. Mobihealthnews

News briefs: ResMed-Verily’s Primasun sleep solution; Maven Clinic’s $90M Series E; Mount Sinai genomics spinoff Sema4 lays off additional 500, exits women’s health

The large conference HLTH is underway in Las Vegas and like pre-Covid, conferences are a platform for announcements. Verily, which is Alphabet’s (Google’s) life sciences and health skunk works, and ResMed, a large company in respiratory medical devices for sleep apnea and sleep disruption treatment, have formed a joint venture, Primasun. Their target market is employers and providers to identify patients at risk for sleep disorders, particularly obstructive sleep apnea. About 75% of those in the US experience some form of sleep disruption at least a few times a week, leading to behavioral and physical problems. Mobihealthnews has the basic information on the launch but also some side information on Verily. Back in September, alongside a $1 billion raise to fund precision health, controversial founding CEO Andy Conrad announced he was stepping down effective in January 2023, replaced by current president Stephen Gillett. Dr. Conrad survived a brace of bad press back in 2016 [TTA 6 Apr 2016] and multiple ups and downs in the past six years.

Maven Clinic, a virtual care company targeting women and families, bucked the trends and locked up a $90 million Series E financing. Led by General Catalyst, there are nine other investors including La Famiglia, CVS Health Ventures, and Intermountain Ventures, bringing total funding to just under $300 million (Crunchbase) and unicorn valuation last year. Maven focuses on women’s health journey from fertility through menopause. The company claims to host 15 million members through primarily companies and health plans, and has contracts with half of the Fortune 15. Recently, they launched a menopause and ongoing care program with 1.2 million lives covered across 150 employer clients.  Release, Mobihealthnews  Notably, General Catalyst has been a bullish funder of both US and UK health systems such as Banner Health, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center, Hackensack Meridian Health, HCA, and Intermountain Health, along with Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust in the UK. Mobihealthnews

Unfortunately, Mount Sinai spinoff Sema4 continues to cut back and restructure. Their latest round of layoffs affects 500, or 32.5% of its workforce. Sema4 will be exiting its reproductive and women’s health testing business and shuttering operations located in Stamford, Connecticut by end of Q1 2023. Going forward, they will concentrate operations in Maryland. In August, they discharged 250 staff, about 13% at that time, including its founder from both the president and director slots. With this latest restructuring, their workforce has been reduced to 1,100. Their release states that they will concentrate on their high growth, high margin pediatric and rare disease business using whole exome/genome diagnostic testing, achieve annual revenue growth in excess of 20%, and reach profitability by 2025. MarketWatch, Becker’s, Mobihealthnews

Wednesday news roundup: PicnicHealth $60M Series C, can a downturn be good for digital health, Cerebral ran wild, a tart take on HIMSS and where it’s going

PicnicHealth had a bit of one, even in this down market. This company which uses machine learning to build data sets for life sciences by working directly with patients and giving them single-source access to their data raised a $60 million Series C via new investor B Capital Group, with existing investors Felicis Ventures and Amplify Partners. The new funding will be used to build 30 new patient-centered real-world data cohorts. Adam Seabrook, Partner at B Capital Group, will be joining the PicnicHealth board of directors. Their total raise to date is $97 million since 2014 (Crunchbase). The platform was launched in 2020. FierceBiotech, release

Funding news may be a little light nowadays, and if you’re public, you’re looking at double digit share price losses, but couldn’t you guess–the downturn may be good for digital health founders! That’s the view of Big VC General Catalyst’s Hemant Taneja, said at Collision 2022, a Toronto tech conference. Now before you’ve thought the man has totally gone out of his gourd with $5+ gallon gasoline (US), 10% inflation, and rolling blackouts looming on both coasts and the UK, it is true that businesses founded in downturns tend to be tough–my father’s business was founded at the start of the Great Depression. As Mr. Taneja put it, tighter times make for more mission-driven “better founders, better investors and better executives”. Secular trends are in their favor in tech and digital transformation, but there will be another correction coming as the market is over-capitalized. Is it the dot-com boom/bust all over again? Only time will tell, but the crackups are already piling up. FierceHealthcare

Speaking of crackups, Cerebral. A report in the annoyingly paywalled Business Insider tells a tale of Telemental Health Running Wild. Former employees and ~2,000 leaked documents claim that Cerebral had no more than a nodding acquaintance with clinical standards until the Feds stepped in. For starters, they took on patients they should not have, didn’t train their nurse-practitioners and other employees, pushed prescriptions to 95% of patients, disregarded state regulations putting licenses at risk, and generally had more twists than a barrel of pretzels. And this was a company prescribing Schedule 2 drugs that had at peak 210,000 active patients and 4,500 employees.  HISTalk summarizes the article, with our thanks. But it’s par for the course, according to a new JMIR (Journal of Medical Internet Research) study also mentioned that found that “many digital health companies have a low level of clinical robustness and do not make many claims as measured by regulatory filings, clinical trials, and public data shared online.” 

And returning to HISTalk (29 June news), there’s a group of comments from a “HIMSS insider” about how that organization is being managed that long-time observers of this organization will find interesting. Employees thought that HIMSS22 was “awkward”. New and cool conferences HLTH (which initially faltered) and ViVE (which HIMSS didn’t even bother to scout) have taken much of the ‘must attend’ and buzz away from HIMSS. Now this wasn’t supposed to happen with the buy of hipper Health 2.0, to which your Editor was connected–but H2O was HIMSS-ized and effectively killed off even before the pandemic. Regional conferences have disappeared, along with a fair number of employees. HIMSS Analytics is sold. Now this could be all one person’s opinion–but what do you think?

A new event–and not all virtual! HLTH and CHIME to launch ViVE in March 2022.

Does it seem like forever that there’s been a new digital health conference, fully in-person–and not labeled HIMSS? HLTH, a relatively new entrant to the big healthcare event calendar starting in 2018 in Las Vegas, and CHIME, The College of Healthcare Information Management Executives, will launch ViVE on 6-9 March 2022 at a location (TBD) in Miami Beach. They are positioning it as an annual event for digital health leaders innovating across the spectrum of health and care. 

The event will incorporate CHIME’s spring forum, a full plate of networking events and presentations, matchmaking, the ViVE Expo, and a gala. For more information on the event or to register interest as a sponsor or partner, see the ViVE page. Release

(This Editor admits that the thought of a new and in-person conference is exciting. It’s nice to contemplate normality!)

CHIME is a 5,000-member association of C-level and senior healthcare IT leaders across 56 countries. The organization parted from the annual HIMSS event this year in Las Vegas 9-13 August, which will be a hybrid in-person and virtual conference [TTA 4 Feb]. Registration and information on the event have been updated.

The HLTH 2021 next event is in Boston 17-20 October. Like HIMSS, it’s scheduled to be a combination in-person and virtual event. HLTH is more broadly inclusive of healthcare care models and consumer health issues. The in-person portion will be at the Boston Convention & Exhibition Center, located in the Seaport District. 

The magic quadrant matrix strikes again for health tech and investment potential

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Medical-social-quadrant-box.jpg” thumb_width=”150″ /]Deceptively simple, the quadrant matrix can make sense out of actions and decisions. As a management tool, it can help you prioritize what is most urgent and important, or how to vary your supervisory/coaching style based on the person’s skill and will levels.

Here we see the magic box used by Krishna Yeshwant, MD, a doctor and investor with GV, Alphabet’s venture firm, to sort out all those Next Revolutions in Health Care. The factors that Dr. Yeshwant uses pertain to the end user’s medical and social needs, often called social determinants of health (SDH). Both are meshed, whether in an active older veteran who lives alone in a rural area but manages his diabetes well, or in a homeless substance user in a city with multiple medical conditions.

Most non-medical entrepreneurs prefer to develop tech and services for people like them with low medical/low social needs, such as virtual doctor apps, concierge primary care, and wellness apps. It’s a crowded quadrant and perhaps is over-served. Those with a medical background appear to gravitate to the diagonal quadrant–high medical/high social needs, such as those targeted to the ‘underserved’ with diabetes or high-need care model management, such as Aledade and Iora Health. Where does the investment money go? Their money goes to companies which have developed high medical need therapeutics such as expensive treatments for cancer, neatly avoiding those complex social factors.

What is missing: innovation in low medical/high social needs. This group is at high risk to move into high medical needs due to their lack of organization and access to/willingness for primary care. This Editor agrees, but if another factor is observed–profitability–this is likely the least potential of the four. So if you want to get Dr. Y’s attention and maybe some moolah from Alphabet…. From his presentation at the HLTH meeting last week in Las Vegas. CNBC.

News roundup: First Stop, GlobalMed, American Well, Avizia, Medicity, Health Catalyst, Allscripts, Welbeing, BenevolentAI

[grow_thumb image=”https://telecareaware.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Lasso.jpg” thumb_width=”125″ /]Announcements and acquisitions have been multiplying–here’s what’s most interesting.

In companies we’ve recently written about:

Our recent Contributor Bruce Judson, now with corporate telemedicine provider First Stop Health, wrote us enroute to the Government Finance Officials Association conference in St. Louis that FSH achieved triple-digit top-line revenue growth and also achieved an average utilization rate of 52 percent. The formal announcement was made earlier this week at the HLTH conference in Las Vegas (release), where another one of our Contributors, Sarianne Gruber, is attending for Answers Media Company.

GlobalMed, a prior contributor to Perspectives, is offering a lower cost telemedicine alternative to practices with a flat fee starting at $799 per month for three years. Startup costs remain at about $5,000. The starting kit includes a cart, a total exam camera, stethoscope and vitals linked to the organization’s network, and a nurse license. Additional compatible equipment is available at extra cost. We know that a number of comparable telemedicine cart-based kits run upwards of $8,000. It is one of the first public acknowledgments this Editor has seen (but has known for years) that high cost is a major impediment for implementing both telehealth and telemedicine in practices. Health Data Management.

In other news:

Telemedicine and telehealth consolidation continues with American Well’s acquisition of hospital-based telemed/workflow systems provider Avizia. Avizia has a product line of telemedicine carts and workflow software for 40 different specialties, including telestroke and telebehavioral health. The acquisition price was not disclosed. Prior investors in this 2013 Cisco spinoff include Northwell Health, NY-Presbyterian, HealthQuest, and other providers in seven rounds totaling over $23 million. Healthcare IT News

A further sign of consolidation, this time in the crowded health information business, is the Medicity acquisition by Health Catalyst. Health Catalyst is primarily a data analytics and warehousing company while Medicity focuses more on data interoperability and patient engagement for practices, health systems, and HIEs. Medicity was purchased by Aetna in 2011 with much fanfare for $500 million as one of its ‘Emerging Businesses’, rebranded as Healthagen in 2013 [TTA 28 Feb 14] which never quite took off. Out of that unit, what remains are Active Health Solutions and Aetna Accountable Care Solutions, a payer-driven value-based care management company. The amount of the sale was not disclosed but is expected to close in 90 days. Health Catalyst’s CEO Brent Dover served as president of Medicity up to 2013, and both companies are located in Salt Lake City. What is interesting about this sale is that CVS, which is buying Aetna, has no comparable in-house technology. It’s a probable shedding of peripheral or money-losing businesses prior to sale.  HISTalk, MedCityNews

Allscripts continues on its acquisition binge with patient communication and engagement platform HealthGrid. HealthGrid is a mobile app platform that delivers care and education materials traditionally distributed from practices to patients via paper. In January, Allscripts bought practice EHR Practice Fusion for $100 million (a loss to investors) and earlier McKesson’s HIT business for $185 million. It’s a noticeable shift to value-added care tools for this formerly EHR-centric company. Mobihealthnews. 

In UK news:

Welbeing has won Norwich City Council’s Norwich Community Alarm Service (NCAS). It provides a 24-hour, year-round monitoring and response service for over 6,500 adults who are vulnerable or at risk in this part of East Anglia. The press release is on UK Telehealthcare‘s news page. 

BenevolentAI, a UK company using artificial intelligence for drug development, raised $115 million in new funding, mostly from undisclosed investors in the United States, according to Mobihealthnews, for a total funding of over $200 million. The company uses AI to reduce drug discovery time and risk. It does not do its own drug discovery but sells the intellectual property discovered by their AI algorithms, claiming to cut drug development timelines by four years and improve efficiencies by 60 percent compared to pharma industry averages.