2013 was a good year for venture-backed company exits, according to data from the National Venture Capital Association. There were 82 IPOs for such businesses during the year, the strongest since 2007. M & A exits were a little slower, with 377 acquisitions of venture-backed firms during the year. Health care IPOs and mergers were prominent.
http://www.nvca.org
Jan062014
Dohmen, which provides a variety of business support services to companies in the medical technology and pharmaceutical industries, announced the acquisition of three firms doing business in the life sciences arena, Red Arrow Labs, ChemWare, and Clinical Path Consulting.
In another sign of the rising dissatisfaction with electronic medical record systems, a hospital has sued NextGen over its delivery of an EMR to the hospital.
An Inovalon research brief suggests that dual eligibles are more complex to manage than other Medicare Advantage beneficiaries and that they tend to drag down a plan's STAR rating.
HealthCor has agreed to make an additional $5 million investment in CareView, which provides bedside video monitoring and patient education and entertainment systems in hospitals.
In the "duh" category, research in the New England Journal of Medicine confirms that particularly for new drivers, use of cell phone significantly raises the risk of accidents.
The Healthy Skeptic is a website about the health care system, and is written by Kevin Roche, who has many years of experience working in the health industry. Mr. Roche is available to assist health care companies through consulting arrangements through Roche Consulting, LLC and may be reached at khroche@healthy-skeptic.com.