TTA’s Blooming Spring 4: UnitedHealth’s CEO change doesn’t stop market pummeling, Omada’s IPO, Theranos redux, Holmes loses appeal, Synchron BCI and Apple, exec security cost, raises, more!

May 16, 2025 | by

 

16 May 2025

One after another surprise this 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!)

From last week: This week’s drama was all about Masimo, developing literally as this Editor was writing. Their website outage was revealed to be from a cyberattack that took down nearly all their systems. Not good for a monitoring/tech company. But their good news was that they sold Sound United to Samsung–2/3rds off. The others deserving of more attention are Neuralink’s successful BCI implant in an ALS subject and UHG’s 1,000 app bet on AI. Not so dramatic: WeightWatchers’ prepackaged, quick bankruptcy, the NIH/CMS autism data project, and Amedisys divesting to salvage their UHG sale. 

Short takes: HHS forms NIH/CMS autism data project; Oscar Health beats Street w/Q1 $275M net; Centene’s $1.3B earnings; UHG has class action suit on earnings, 1K AI apps in production; Cedars-Sinai and Redesign Health partner on development; FDA, Lilly, Novo Nordisk win vs. compounders (Big step forward for autism research)

News roundup: WeightWatchers in 45-day prepackaged Ch. 11, Neuralink BCI successful in ALS subject, telehealth VR reduced TMD pain–study, AliveCor maxes up KardiaMobile 6L, TytoCare-Allina Health partnership, UHG-Amedisys divest some more (WW losing runway, a Neuralink win, Amedisys divesting to save their two-year-old UHG deal)

Breaking–Masimo Mystery SOLVED–cyberattack, website down for days, new websites up–and where’s the public explanations? Sound United sold. (Another cleanup on Aisle 10–the Sound United albatross flies off)

Holding this over: 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. Updated–Also Tecco’s blog post on why she quit being an angel investor.) 

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Best wishes to Strata-gee’s Ted Green on a fast recovery!

May 13, 2025 | by

Our expert on all things Masimo is down, but certainly not out. Last Monday (5 May) Ted Green, the founder of audio business website Strata-gee, while out power walking, was hit by something (spaceship, meteorite–your Editor will let him tell you), and wound up hospitalized for a few days with a variety of injuries. He’s now recuperating at home. Our very best wishes for his recovery from multiple bang-ups, bruises, and a nasty shoulder.

If you like audio, Ted’s website is a must-read for the business behind the brands. Even if you are old-school audio like me, you’ll find it fascinating and written from the perspective of a real Business Insider. 

He digs deep. Right before his ‘airborne’ event, Ted’s last Masimo story for Strata-gee dated 1 May investigated what was going on with their website. I had casually mentioned to Ted that the Masimo website was down after picking up his analysis of former CEO Joseph Kiani’s claim to 13.2% share ownership. Ted is the one who investigated that Masimo’s website remained down with no explanations that made sense and it had spread internally. He was the first to bring to everyone’s attention on the healthcare side that Masimo Had A Problem, and it was bigger than a temporary outage. Commenters weighed in with updates. Masimo finally admitted in their SEC Form 8-K on 6 May that they had a cyber incident that affected most of their systems, including manufacturing and customer service. The story developed last week as you’ll see here—while Ted was in the hospital–as well as the Sound United sale.

If you’ve liked our coverage on Masimo–and the ‘hits’ indicate that you, our Readers, have–you can thank Ted.

Add your good wishes to comments under his story on his ‘event’. (BTW, the care he received at JFK Hospital in Edison, New Jersey was excellent.)

Masimo updates: optimism around healthcare despite ’24 losses, former CEO Kiani files notice in California on compensation owed

March 6, 2025 | by

Masimo’s hurricane of change apparently hasn’t been an ill wind–at least in their investors’ view. Masimo, a medical device company with an audio brand unit, Sound United, had another year in the red. A net income loss of $304.9 million is usually enough to send investors and analysts into paroxyms of despair, but that didn’t happen on the Q4/FY24 investor call on Tuesday 25 February. Au contraire. Based on Ted Green’s excellent reporting on his audio business website, Strata-gee, the analysts were “thrilled”–and the stock climbed, ending $10 up today in a downer of a market. What gave them hope was a brand new CEO, Katie Szyman, with an impressive track record from BD and Edwards Lifesciences, CFO Micah Young, and the general energy of the team that contrasted sharply with previous management calls. Moreover, under that negative number was good news and a cleanup on Aisle 5 that Ted ferreted out from the large pile of SEC-filed documents:

  • Sound United, the giant barnacle on the Masimo ship, is well on its way to a sale. They have already written down $304 million for all remaining goodwill, the sale “is in the later stages of the process” and may be wrapped as early as Q1. Sound United will no longer be reported on for 2025, so forward reports will be only the healthcare portion of the business.
  • The $1.4 billion healthcare business grew 10% in constant currency (9% versus 2023). Importantly, based on 2024 performance, the forward business picture is excellent: the incremental value of new contracts was $432 million, they shipped over 232,000 technology boards and monitors, pulse oximetry consumables were up 14%, co-oximetry & hemodynamics consumables grew 13%, capnography & gas monitoring consumables grew 27%, and brain monitoring consumables grew 19%. In fact, all healthcare numbers were up versus 2023.
  • A strategic realignment that prioritized projects, reviewed the product portfolio, wrote off R&D, and had corresponding layoffs/severance charges was completed by December, resulting in charges of $128 million against Q4. 
  • Ancillary businesses (my term) have been wrapped up or disposed of: Willow Laboratories (formerly Cercacor Labs), Masimo Foundation, Like Minded Media Ventures (LMMV), and Like Minded Laboratories (LML).

This Editor invites you to read more from Ted on the results as well as profiles of Ms. Szyman and Mr. Young. Ms. Szyman’s statement on why she was there and her purpose was the kind you’d wish your CEO would deliver. After complimenting the interim CEO Michelle Brennan, Mr. Young, and COO Bilal Muhsin on their plan in refocusing on healthcare:

“[I]n the big two weeks that I’ve been here, honestly, I think that Micah and Bilal know this business really well, and they’re the ones that put together the plan. So, I have a lot of confidence in the plan that was put together and the ability to drive profitable growth going forward. I think the area that I’m going to be focused on for the next quarter is really trying to better understand how to expand our leadership position in our core markets. And then, second, focusing on the healthcare innovation – this company has great technology and great innovation, and now that we’ve narrowed it down to the Healthcare space, I’ll be working with the team to build out how we actually execute on commercial excellence on soo many of these great innovations that we have. 

This is all a good start–and Mr. Market seems to be happy. Now to deliver on their value proposition. Masimo earnings release

On the legal front, it’s hardly been wrapped up. Former CEO Joe Kiani submitted a Private Attorneys General Act (PAGA) Notice (PDF attached) to the California Labor & Workforce Development Agency (LWDA) for  multiple Labor Code violations concerning wages, multiple stock options, and severance owed to Mr. Kiani under his employment agreements. The PAGA Notice alleges the six Politan directors acted in bad faith, first to force Mr. Kiani out of Masimo, then to “devise a post-hoc and pretextual termination for “Cause”” under his employment agreement over the following month. This follows on the Delaware Chancery Court January filing requesting dismissal of Masimo’s charges against the severance agreement as filed in the improper venue–Delaware, not California [TTA 30 Jan]–but takes a different approach direct to the LWDA.  It’s notable in being filed not only against Masimo but against the six board members. The penalties reaching back to the directors could total over $100 million in statutory penalties – 65% of which would be payable to California. There is no projection on how quickly the LWDA would act nor if their decision once reached could be appealed. Developing. Disclosure: This Editor received the PAGA Notice and information from a strategic communications representative of Joe Kiani. The interpretations and summaries of the filings are your Editor’s.