This is an outstanding report on total global drug spending and trends, with projections out to 2025. It helps you understand this important area of health care, which does much to improve care outcomes, but comes with a very high price that stresses payers and consumers.
Gastro Health is a rollup of gastroenterology practices across the country by a private equity group. This is a common practice which contributes to consolidation, high prices, high utilization and no improvement in quality. These private equity groups then sell the entity to another PE group to provide a lucrative exit and on we go. In this case the Ontario Employees pension plan is the buyer. I am sure they care a lot about health care in the US.
And here is why I don't buy the telehealth or any other subsegment hype. American Well went public last fall at a very high price and shot up even higher, but now it is trading at 70% lower than the IPO price. Bullshit that doesn't have substance behind it gets caught sooner or later. Despite being in existence for years and having all the tailwinds of the epidemic behind it, this company is losing a pile of money. It is in a commodity business with no differentiation and lots of competition. Most of these high-flying health care IPOs will end up in the same place.
https://www.cnbc.com/quotes/amwl?qsearchterm=amwl
May212021
Not the best name for a company given the epidemic, but Ro, which basically sells health products over the internet, is acquiring Modern Fertility. Here is the insanity of current investing. Ro raised an astounding $500 million earlier this year. It is spending $225 million to buy Modern Fertility which offers fertility tests. So the Modern Fertility shareholders are happy because they took their crappy investment and made money, but the Ro shareholders should be livid, because there is no way you get a return on either the $500 million or the $225 million.
Cedar seeks its way out of the forest by spending $425 million to acquire OODA Health, creating a firm which offers billing and revenue cycle services to providers and payers.
Unmind, which offers mental health support services in the workplace, raises $47 million in a new financing from investors who are apparently un-minded.
Hospitals are an expensive health care setting, so for decades policy has attempted to lessen hospital use, which has some unintended consequences, as revealed by the epidemic. One emerging trend has been "hospital at home", in which all the expensive equipment is placed, and monitoring of a patient is literally done, at their home. Mayo Clinic and Kaiser have both invested in a company facilitating hospital at home capabilities, putting as much as $100 million into Medically Home Group.
Health care is a fifth of the economy. Everyone wants a piece, including Walmart, which just purchased a telemedicine company, MeMD, for an undisclosed sum. Walmart has increasingly added health care services to its original pharmacy business, including in-store clinics. At least with Walmart, health care probably is made more affordable.
Vida Health comes alive with a $110 million capital raise to support its business of offering apps to help manage chronic health conditions. It only competes with a hundred other companies offering the same low value crap, so you can understand why investors jumped at the chance to put more money in.
Collective Health aggregates $280 million in new financing to support its employer health benefits management business. The investors have lost their collective minds. The company serves employers with 300,000 members in 55 companies, so it is being valued at about $1000 a member for a commodity business.
R1 RCM, a vendor of provider revenue cycle management software and services, is paying a healthy $300 million to buy VisitPay, which helps patients figure out to pay what they owe for health care services.
Headway has raised $70 million in new capital to facilitate growth of its platform to assist therapists in providing mental health services and patients in finding therapists.
I have been writing this blog for a long time and I thought I had seen some wild times for investments and valuations, but this is insane. Every day, multiple new investments at very high valuation. CareSyntax, which offers software to help collect data on surgeries and help with decision support, raised $100 million in new capital. If I can't understand how a company can possibly deliver that much value, something is seriously wrong.
Capsule, which operates a "digital" pharmacy raised $300 million in additional capital. You can't have a health care business if it isn't digital, no matter how pedestrian its business. Craziness in the capital markets.
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.
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.