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

Deal and news roundup: Humana closes $5.7B Kindred at Home buy, Unite Us SDOH buys Carrot Health for data, Carrot Fertility raises $75M, Maven Clinic at $1B value, Privia partners with Babyscripts for moms, Tyto Care and Prisma Health

Home care continues to rock with the third move in two weeks. Payer giant Humana closed its acquisition of home care giant Kindred at Home, completing the acquisition of the approximately 60% Humana did not already own for $5.7 billion. Kindred provides home health, hospice, and personal care services to over 550,000 patients annually, making it the largest US home health company. Humana will integrate Kindred into their Home Solutions business, sunsetting the Kindred name for CenterWell Home Health starting in 2022. CenterWell is payer-agnostic, which is a fancy way of saying that they sell to other payers. An interesting nugget in the release is that Home Solutions has an interim president, Greg Sheff. FierceHealthcare

While planned since earlier this year, the shakeup in the sleepy home health segment in usually dozy August has been substantial, and at premium prices. Honor’s acquired Home Instead [TTA 14 Aug] with a valuation of $2.1 billion and the Sharecare conglomerate bought CareLinx for $65 million [TTA 19 Aug].  

In another hot area, social determinants of health (SDOH), NYC-based care coordination platform Unite Us acquired Carrot Health for an undisclosed sum. Carrot Health is a consumer data and health data set that powers over 500 proprietary predictive models. Carrot’s team will be absorbed into the Unite Us current structure. Both products will be sold together and separately as Unite Us positions the company as the only national company to integrate health and social care. Back in March, Unite Us closed a $150 million Series C. This follows on the Wellsky acquisition of SDOH provider Healthify earlier this month to bolster its community care platform [TTA 4 Aug]. Release, FierceHealthcare, Mobihealthnews

Women’s and family health gaining popularity and funding. Another Carrot, Carrot Fertility, raised a $75 million Series C funding, led by the deep-pocketed Tiger Global Management. Their current funding totals $115 million. Carrot Fertility, based in San Francisco, provides fertility benefits for generous companies like Peloton, Box, Slack, and Eventbrite in more than 55 countries. FierceHealthcare

And while we are on women’s health, Maven Clinic, a women and family health-oriented digital health provider, reached unicorn ($1 billion) valuation status with a $110 million Series D fund raise led by a female partner at Lux Capital with backing from Oprah Winfrey. Maven pitches itself to employers and health plans as a virtual clinic for women’s and family health, offering care and support for fertility, pregnancy, and parenting. This Editor looks forward to the day where specialized women’s and family health services are part of routine care, and news about a provider wouldn’t need this type of spin to get noticed. (It’s like US car companies in the 1950s bringing in women designers to make cars that appealed especially to women. Buick and Jordan figured that out in the 1920s.)  FierceHealthcare, TechCrunch, plus a loquacious blog post from founder Kate Ryder

And speaking of babies, Privia Health, one of the larger management services organizations (MSOs) for physician practices, is partnering with virtual maternity care Babyscripts for pregnancy and post-partum care. The Babyscripts services will be integrated into Privia’s Women’s Health provider group. DC-based Babyscripts is small with only about $20 million in funding through Series B (Crunchbase) but addresses the big problems of maternal and post-pregnancy mother and baby care, including maternal deaths. Privia providers will be able to access Babyscripts’ remote patient monitoring for mental health, hypertension, preeclampsia. and gestational diabetes, as well as apps for educational content.  Mobihealthnews

Diagnostic monitor Tyto Care is partnering with Prisma Health, the largest healthcare system in South Carolina, for remote diagnostics and treatment during video consults. Their physician network will be equipped to provide their patients and Prisma employees with convenient, secure, and clinic-quality diagnostics using the Tyto Care kit during telehealth visits. Release, Mobihealthnews