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

November 16, 2022 | by

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

Week-end news roundup: +Oscar data tech platform pauses, BD buys MedKeeper pharmatech for $93M, Novant’s Meta misconfiguration reveals PHI, Mt Sinai’s Sema4 genomics spinoff releases 250 + founder

August 19, 2022 | by

+Oscar, Oscar Health’s foray into selling value-based health plan management services within a full-stack platform, has taken a minus. They are no longer pursuing relationships until they straighten out the ones they have, which are proving problematic. Their last implementation at Florida-based insurer Health First Health Plans (not to be confused with NY’s HealthFirst) proved to have some problems that prevented them from going live early this year, which were not itemized but were serious enough for Oscar Health to stop acquiring accounts until said difficulties are sorted out.  +Oscar’s platform is designed to deliver medical cost management to payers and value-based care by closing care gaps, improving quality scores, enhancing value, and communicating effectively with patients through its Campaign Builder and Next Best Actions engines (release). How many contracts +Oscar has implemented was not disclosed, although since startup in April 2021, they were claiming a pace of 1-2 annually. Oscar Health has experienced a few bumps since its March 2021 IPO that raised $1.4 billion, what with share prices cruising in the mid-single digits and shareholder class action lawsuits [TTA 19 May]. Healthcare Dive, Q2 results

Medical device giant BD gets into pharmatech with MedKeeper buy for an eye-popping $93 million. The purchase was made from pharmaceutical manufacturer Grifols, SA, a Spanish multinational pharmaceutical and chemical manufacturer, as part of their plan to exit non-core businesses. MedKeeper is a photo-based automation system for in-hospital workflows and systems for pharmacy communications, compliance, and productivity.  BD also owns two pharmacy-related companies in their Medication Management Solutions portfolio, Parata for automating vial filling, packaging, and central fill, and Pyxis automated medication dispensers. Count BD as another company that acquires technology from, as this Editor put it earlier, “healthy health tech companies at the right (discounted) price that fill in their tech gaps.” MedTechDive, BD release

North Carolina provider Novant Health has notified patients of a code misconfiguration of their Meta Pixel tracker that may lead to unauthorized disclosure of their personal health information (PHI). The number of patients is not disclosed. In June, The Markup and STAT jointly published a several-part exposé of the Meta Pixel tracker being loaded into patient portals and the online appointment scheduler, capturing sensitive patient information and sending it to Facebook [TTA 17 June]. The letter explains the event as a campaign to connect more patients to their MyChart portal. The pixel was removed in June (after the article published). Novant determined that PHI could have been disclosed, although they have not uncovered any improper use to date. HealthITSecurity, Novant release

Layoffs and restructurings continue this summer with the latest being Sema4, a population health/analytics/ML/AI-assisted disease model spinoff of Mount Sinai. In what the company (Nasdaq: SMFR) has termed “a series of corporate realignments”, the company is discharging 250 staff, about 13%, plus shedding its founder from both the president and director slots effective immediately. Leading the company will be a transformation management office that includes the CEO and the new chief technology & product officer. On their Q2 earnings call, coupled with the first half, Sema4 disclosed layoffs from first half to total 30% of “legacy” staff to reduce to 1,600 employees. With shuttering some of their lab business and moving of operations, they expect to achieve cost savings of $50 million in 2022 and $250 million by end of 2023, to refocus on what they term their ‘health insights business’. Net loss in the second quarter of 2022 was $85.7 million, up over $40 million in Q2 2021. Yahoo Finance, Becker’s.