News roundup: AstraZeneca’s Evinova to market clinical trial health tech; BehaVR-Fern merge; UpHealth sells Cloudbreak telehealth translation; MedwebX launches; Tunstall-UEdinburgh research partnership; NextGen loses 84 after going private

November 21, 2023 | by

AstraZeneca makes a bet on selling health tech for drug development. Evinova, a separate health tech business within AstraZeneca, will market and develop proprietary technology and sell it to other pharma, biotech, and clinical research organizations (CROs) to optimize clinical trials. According to their release, these technologies have already been used in successful clinical trials in over 40 countries. CROs Parexel and Fortrea have already formally agreed to offer the three-part Evinova ‘drug development suite’ to their customers. Other partnerships include Accenture and Amazon Web Services.

On the buy and funding side:

RealizedCare formed from BehaVR and Fern Health. This interesting combination of virtual reality behavioral health (BehaVR) and chronic pain manager Fern Health promises digital therapeutics for value-based chronic pain care management. RealizedCare’s market is health plans, employers and value-based providers, working with them to identify, assess, and engage their members, employees, and patients with chronic pain. Their advanced care management platform is powered by DTx technology to scale pain management. Fern Health is backed by Aachen, Germany pharmaceutical company Grünenthal which will be a strategic investor in RealizedCare.  The combined company will be US-based in Nashville. Financials and workforce transitions are not disclosed, but two CEOs are listed on their website–Brad Lawson, CEO, Fern Health, and Aaron Gani, founder and CEO. Release, Mobihealthnews

UpHealth sells off telehealth translation services holding Cloudbreak Health to private equity firm GTCR, as part of a complex reorganization. Cloudbreak provides video remote interpreting (VRI) through its Martti (My Accessible Real-Time Trusted Interpreter) tool to aid in simultaneous translation in over 250 languages. Purchase price is $180 million and subject to regulatory and shareholder approvals, with closing anticipated by Q1 2024. Cloudbreak is currently headquartered in Columbus, Ohio. UpHealth has been selling off and putting into Chapter 11 various holdings such as UpHealth Holdings [TTA 29 Sep], Behavioral Health Services (BHS), and Thrasys, Inc., but not the publicly traded UpHealth Inc., which closed today on the NYSE at $0.79 having just resumed trading (Yahoo Finance, UpHealth release). Reportedly UpHealth will be refocusing on addiction treatment services provided in South Florida. More on their complex financials in their Q3 report.  Release

Short takes:

Digital medical imaging and storage company Medweb announced MedwebX, a HIPAA-compliant solution designed for sharing imaging, studies, data, and reports across networks. Release

Oracle’s moves into Music City Nashville [TTA 2 Nov] continue with the announcement of the Oracle Health Summit on 13 February 2024. According to the Nashville Business Journal, it’s a brief one emailed out to save the date and confirm their information when further details are available. The invitation reads in part, “At this daylong event, you’ll network with peers, hear from experts on the latest trends, and learn how leading organizations are using data-driven technology to deliver human-centered experiences.” Wonder if Bill Frist will be invited.

Tunstall Healthcare and the University of Edinburgh signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on telecare research. Edinburgh’s Advanced Care Research Centre will provide the academic ecosystem for the partnership, including medicine, engineering, informatics, data, and social sciences. Research will center on the development and deployment of digital tools and techniques for telecare, including multi-partner collaborations.  AT Today

And just in time for Thanksgiving…post-going private NextGen Healthcare will be releasing 84 employees at its St. Louis, Missouri location, according to their WARN notice filed with the state. The layoffs are “as a result of staffing optimization efforts” in connection with the company’s purchase by private equity firm Thoma Bravo. Layoffs of management, supervisors, account receivables staff, representatives, and analysts who work onsite, hybrid, and remote will be staggered with some released 16 January with others 1 February and 1 March. Some employees will be remaining in St. Louis, though NextGen is headquartered in Atlanta. Becker’s, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, St. Louis Business Journal

News roundup: Veradigm facing Nasdaq delisting, UpHealth files Chapter 11, Virgin Pulse-HealthComp $3B merger, MidiHealth’s $25M Series A, Inbound Health’s $30M Series B

September 29, 2023 | by

Veradigm way out of compliance with Nasdaq, faces delisting. Nasdaq apparently is facing the end of its patience with Veradigm (the former Allscripts) and is moving to delist the company from the exchange as of 20 September. Veradigm plans to appeal to the Nasdaq Hearings Panel to gain an additional 22 days. Starting in March, the company has attributed to a massive financial software flaw the delay of its annual report for 2022, a restatement of FY 2021, and reporting of their 2023 Q1 and Q2 financials to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). All these are required by Nasdaq for listing. After multiple extensions begged from Nasdaq since June, whether 22 days will make any difference is doubtful. Veradigm closed today at $13.38. Stay tuned. Release, Becker’s Health IT, TTA 23 Aug

UpHealth Holdings filed Chapter 11 bankruptcy, to reorganize. The parent company UpHealth Inc. claims this was not due to operational shortfalls, but to a court decision that found that the company owed investment bank Needham & Company $31 million in fees as a result of its November 2020 SPAC [TTA 26 Nov 2020]. The company release is unusually coy but states that the Chapter 11 was necessary to “mitigate the financial impact of the trial court’s decision” and was not the result of operation nor will affect operations. This was a more complicated than usual SPAC that merged the public entity, GigCapital2 Inc., with UpHealth Holdings and Cloudbreak Health to create a $1.3 billion (at that time) digital health company, UpHealth Inc., with care management platforms and virtual care infrastructure plus behavioral health services. Cloudbreak Health is not in Chapter 11. The UpHealth Inc. stock on NYSE stopped trading with the bankruptcy on 19 September and is currently at $0.98 from a 2021 peak of $28. Another cracked SPAC.  MarketWatch, HIStalk.

In more cheerful funding news:

Employer wellness platform Virgin Pulse and benefits analytics platform HealthComp to merge. The $3 billion deal creates a combined entity that will improve outcomes and lower costs for primarily self-insured employers and members through the Homebase for Health platform. Chris Michalak of Virgin will serve as CEO of the combined entity upon anticipated closing in Q4. The merger is backed by New Mountain Capital, Marlin Equity Partners, Blackstone, and Morgan Health, with New Mountain Health to be majority owner. FierceHealthcare, Healthcare Dive, Virgin release

MidiHealth backed by GV (Google Ventures) in $25 million Series A. MidiHealth focuses on female menopause and midlife transitional care in a direct-to-consumer model. Investors Frederique Dame and Cathy Friedman from GV are joined by current investors Felicis, Semper Virens, Icon, 25M, and Operator Collective, for funding to date of $40 million. The menopause/women’s health segment is one of the few bright spots of the current wobbly healthcare funding scene. MidiHealth recently inked a deal with fertility benefits company Progyny to widen their scope to midlife care for US employers.  Release, FierceHealthcare

And it’s a $30 million Series B for Inbound Health. Based in Minneapolis, the company assists hospitals and health systems to offer acute and post-acute/skilled nursing facility-level care in the home. Funding was led by HealthQuest Capital with participation from existing investors Flare Capital Partners and McKesson Ventures for total funding to date of $40.25 million. The new funding will assist expansion into new markets including further development of the company’s clinical programs, the next evolution of its proprietary technology and advanced analytics platform, and the continued build-out of customized operating assets focused on supply chain, labor, and logistics. Hospital-to-home is another one of the few bright spots this year.  Release, Axios

Health tech M&A moves: Well Health’s $45M Series C, GigHealth2/UpHealth’s $1.35 bn ‘blank check’ acquisition

November 26, 2020 | by

Santa Barbara, California-based Well Health, a patient communication platform that connects patients and providers through the care experience including the home, earlier this week announced a $45 million Series C funding round, bringing total funds raised to $75 million since its founding in 2015. The lead investor is Lead Edge Capital, with Martin Ventures plus previous funders Jackson Square Ventures, Health Velocity Capital, Summation Health Ventures, Structure Capital and Freestyle Capital. Their target markets are providers, payers, and accountable care organizations (ACOs). Well Health’s CEO/founder Guillaume de Zwirek, claimed that annually 200,000 healthcare providers use the platform to send more than 1 billion messages with 30+ million patients.

Well Health also announced Dana Gelb Safran, Sc.D. as Senior Vice President, Value Based Care and Population Health. She was previously with Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts. Well Health release, Mobihealthnews

GigCapital2 Inc., a publicly-traded US special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) or ‘blank check’ company, has agreed to merge with UpHealth Holdings Inc and Cloudbreak Health LLC to create a digital healthcare company valued at $1.35 billion. According to their release, UpHealth is expected to generate over $190M in revenue and $24M in EBITDA next year; 69% of the 2021 incremental revenue growth is already contracted. The combined company will be named UpHealth, Inc. and trade on the NYSE under UPH.

The new company will be organized in four lines across population health management and telehealth: Integrated Care Management, Global Telehealth, Digital Pharmacy, and Tech-enabled Behavioral Health. Global Telehealth under the Cloudbreak brand claims 100,000 encounters per month on over 14,000 video endpoints at over 1,800 healthcare venues nationwide, with telepsychiatry, telestroke, tele-urology, and other specialties.

GigCapital2 previously raised $150 million in an IPO in June 2019. It will raise an additional $160 million as a private investment in a public equity, or PIPE, transaction. GigCapital is located in Palo Alto and is led by CEO/President Dr. Raluca Dinu and Executive Chairman Dr. Avi Katz. The roots of the company are interestingly in the companies ultimately rolled up into GigPeak, which was sold to Newark NJ-based telecom company IDT Corporation in 2017.

‘Blank check’ acquisition companies are becoming a popular way for digital health companies to go public without the fuss and bother of the necessary and expensive filings, SEC review, financing, etc. of an IPO. In August, SOC Telemed went this route in the other direction, acquiring a SPAC [TTA 4 August]. Hims, Augmedix, and Clover Health also went public through SPACs.The former principals of Livongo, post-Teladoc, are also forming a SPAC [TTA 30 Oct]. Reuters, Fierce Healthcare