News roundup: Cerebral forfeits $3.7M on federal Rx charges, Aetna president named, Stewardship Health sold to Rural Healthcare, Oura buys data company Sparta Science, Brook Health-Linus Health remote cognitive assessment

November 8, 2024 | by

Cerebral settles its controlled substances distribution charges with DOJ and DEA. The $3,652,000 forfeited under the non-prosecution agreement (NPA) with the Department of Justice, Eastern District of NY, and the Drug Enforcement Agency acknowledges that Cerebral, between February 2021 and October 2022, had instituted internal measures to increase the prescriptions of controlled substances for ADHD such as Adderall, which are Schedule II drugs. The internal policies had the goal of boosting patient retention and, by extension, Cerebral’s revenue. “Today’s settlement holds Cerebral responsible for their failure to protect patients from the harms caused by the unnecessary or overprescribing of potentially-addictive ADHD medications. Cerebral’s exploitation of telemedicine flexibilities deceived patients who were legitimately seeking medical care, putting them at risk in exchange for profit,” said DEA Administrator Anne Milgram. 

There is an additional fine of $2,922,000 which Cerebral cannot pay at this time. It is being deferred for the term of the NPA (30 months) as long as Cerebral is in compliance with the NPA and waived at the conclusion, unless Cerebral is determined to be able to pay in part or full. If Cerebral violates the NPA, Cerebral can be prosecuted for any of the conduct that gave rise to the NPA and any newly discovered criminal activity. The DOJ-Eastern District release documents Cerebral’s violations.  Healthcare Dive

CVS Health reports mixed results, names a new Aetna president and CVS group president. Q3 revenue was $95.4 billion, up 6.3% versus prior year. Net income though fell to $71 million, versus $2.3 billion in prior year. The Aetna insurance unit was responsible for much of the reduction due to anticipated losses in Q4 2024 within the Medicare and individual exchange product lines. There were major miscalculations in Medicare Advantage utilization (higher than anticipated) with an increased medical loss ratio, plus lower payments for state Medicaid plan coverages. Release, Healthcare Dive

Named with the Q3 earnings were Aetna’s new president, Steve Nelson,  who will be expected to improve on this situation sooner, not later. He was previously the CEO of value-based primary care company ChenMed and CEO of UnitedHealthcare from 2016 to 2019. Also named as a new group president for CVS Caremark, CVS Pharmacy, and Health Care Delivery businesses is Prem Shah. He was previously EVP/president of Pharmacy and Consumer Wellness. Release

Stewardship Health closes sale out of bankruptcy. Practice group Stewardship Health was finally approved by the Massachusetts Health Policy Commission (HPC) for acquisition by Brady Health Buyer. This is an entity set up by private equity company Kinderhook Industries, LLC, on behalf of its existing investment, Nashville-based Rural Healthcare Group. The sale was originally submitted through the Texas Federal court handling the Steward Health bankruptcy and approved by the judge 22 August for a price of $245 million [TTA 16 Aug]. The practices have been rebranded as Revere Medical. Healthcare Finance

Oura buys Sparta Science. For health tracker ring Oura, it is its third acquisition in two years, following Proxy in 2023 and metabolic health developer Veri this past September. Sparta Science was acquired to bolster Oura’s enterprise offering, Oura Business and the Oura Teams platform. Sparta’s Trinsic platform tracks health vitals for enterprise clients collecting, analyzing, and delivering human health and performance information.  It will be integrated into Oura Teams which combines data from customer EMRs and other third-party data sources. The overall goal is to support population health through measuring and analyzing over 20 biometrics as factors in sleep, activity, readiness, stress, resilience, women’s health, and heart health. Oura Ring 4 was introduced last month. Oura will be sunsetting Sparta’s legacy force plates at the end of the year. Transaction cost nor financing were disclosed. Release, Mobihealthnews, TechCrunch

Brook Health partners with Linus Health for remote cognitive impairment assessments. Boston-based Linus Health, which has developed a series of digital cognitive assessment tools for Alzheimer’s and other dementias, has partnered with remote patient care software company Brook Health for a remote digital cognitive assessment tool that allows primary care physicians to screen and assess patients for mild cognitive impairments (MCI), sending them home with a treatment plan–all on the same day. It also provides support via a 24/7 remote clinical care team. The ability not only to diagnose MCI and initiate treatment are critical in supporting primary care physicians who generally do not have the tools or ability within their practices to perform this preventative screening. Release

Week-end wrapup: CVS plans to expand primary care, home health; Cera Care raises £264M; Linus Health’s AI enabled dementia screener, Cognito’s cognitive therapy slows brain atrophy

August 5, 2022 | by

The sandal (it’s summer) drops at CVS Health in primary care–and maybe more. On their Q2 earnings call, CVS discussed that they are determined to enhance their services in three categories: primary care, provider enablement, and home health. The footwear that dropped was from CEO Karen Lynch: “We can’t be in the primary care without M&A” (sic). It was inevitable, given that rival Walgreens has a $5 billion deal with VillageMD for freestanding Village Medical clinics, Amazon with the pending One Medical buy–which it passed on only weeks prior [TTA 7 July], and Walmart picking along the edges with in-store clinics and telehealth. CVS’ criteria: strong management team, strong tech stack, strong scale, strong ability to build a pathway to profitability. (Certainly not an easy set of hurdles) CVS’ urgent care and in-store MinuteClinics have been doing well, with business up 12% to 2.8 million patient visits year to date. HISTalk, FierceHealthcare, Motley Fool transcript of earnings call

London-based Cera Care Ltd. raised £263.6 million ($320 million) in an equally split debt/equity round. Equity funding came from existing investor Kairos HQ, then the Vanderbilt University Endowment, Schroders Capital, Jane Street Capital, Yabeo Capital, Squarepoint Capital, Guinness Asset Management, Oltre Impact, 8090 Partners, and technology investor Robin Klein. Debt was not disclosed. The fresh financing will go towards expanding patient capacity in the UK plus Germany from the current 15,000 to 100,000.  Cera delivers in-home care, nursing, telehealth, and prescription delivery services using a digital platform and AI algorithms that use the data gathered to predict changes in patient status. TechCrunch, UKTechNews

Two developments from separate companies in the vital areas of improving dementia and Alzheimer’s diagnosis–and outcomes:

  • Linus Health has debuted its cognitive assessment and patient questionnaire platform for clinical use by primary care providers. The assessment tests for subtle changes in cognitive function, which in the preclinical phase will often go undetected. The concept is to push forward diagnosis and therapies to slow disease progression. It is based on an iPad and includes their DCTclock, an AI-enhanced version of the traditional paper-based Clock Drawing Test using a digital stylus or pen that can also spot symptoms of early-stage Parkinson’s. The evaluation including the DCTclock takes about 10 minutes. Release, FierceBiotech
  • Cognito Therapeutics is still in the investigational stage with its GammaSense headset which delivers sound and light therapy to cognitively impaired patients. The sensory stimulation evokes gamma oscillations in the brain that reduces neurodegeneration and brain atrophy. Their paper delivered last week at the Alzheimers Association conference tracked subjects who used the headset one hour per day for six months. The therapy reduced white matter shrinkage to about 0.4%, compared to a historical tracking of about 2%. An earlier study also showed slowdowns in the decline of memory and cognitive function. FierceBiotech