– Private equity firm Advent International announced that
it has completed a recapitalization of RxBenefits, the employee benefits
industry’s first and only technology-enabled pharmacy benefits optimizer (PBO).
– The transaction values RxBenefits at approximately $1.1
billion.
Advent International (“Advent”), one of the largest and most experienced global private equity investors, today announced that it has completed a recapitalization of RxBenefits, the employee benefits industry’s first and only technology-enabled pharmacy benefits optimizer (PBO), which values the company at approximately $1.1 billion. With this investment, Advent joins Great Hill Partners (“Great Hill”), a leading growth-oriented private equity firm, which first invested in the company in 2016. Advent and Great Hill now each own equal stakes in RxBenefits, alongside a significant investment from the current management team.
Founded in 1995, RxBenefits offers comprehensive “white-glove” service throughout the prescription benefits process for employee benefits consultants, self-funded employers, hospital and health systems, and third-party administrators. RxBenefits serves as a trusted pharmacy adviser to employee benefits consultants and as the pharmacy benefits solution provider of choice for self-insured employers.
The company leverages longstanding partnerships with the leading pharmacy benefits managers (PBMs), a proprietary data management and business intelligence platform, and tailored clinical strategies to deliver unmatched pharmaceutical cost savings to self-insured employers and small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs). The RxBenefits team consists of over 500 pricing, technology, data, and clinical experts providing coverage to more than 2 million members.
The recapitalization will provide RxBenefits with capital to accelerate the build-out of its salesforce, broker channels, and technology and continue executing on its strong growth strategy, both organically and through M&A.
Why It Matters
As of October, pharmaceutical spending was up 6.3% YoY and
climbing. In fact, recent forecasts predict a 3.29% increase for pharmaceutical
purchases by health systems and a 4.47% spending increase for Specialty drugs
in 2021 due to ongoing disruption caused by COVID-19 and other market trends.
Rising prescription drug costs have put employers between a rock and a hard
place as they struggle to reign in dramatically increasing pharmacy benefit
spend while protecting the health of their members, especially in the midst of
a pandemic. In fact, over 60% of employers say their prescription drug and
medical spend is costly and unsustainable.
RxBenefits is the
only company that combines market purchasing power equivalent to that of a
Fortune 10 employer, a proprietary technology infrastructure, a data-driven
clinical approach and high touch personalized service to optimize the value
self-insured employers receive from their pharmacy benefits investment. Its PBO
model is in a Category of One.
The chances are that at some point in the last year when you’ve been talking to someone about how hard it’s been to keep track of and to keep on top of your workload when more and more people are working from home, and everything is so up in the air, that someone will have recommended a management software that they swear by. They will have told you that it has made their work-life immeasurably easier and that they cannot remember how they ever got by without it. The problem is that, as with so much software designed to help
– NeuroFlow raises $20M to expand its technology-enabled behavioral
health integration platform, led by Magellan Health.
– NeuroFlow’s suite of HIPAA-compliant, cloud-based tools
simplify remote patient monitoring, enable risk stratification, and facilitate
collaborative care. With NeuroFlow, health care organizations can finally
bridge the gap between mental and physical health in order to improve outcomes
and reduce the cost of care.
NeuroFlow, a Philadelphia-based digital health startup supporting technology-enabled behavioral health integration (tBHI), announces today the initial closing of a $20M Series B financing round led by Magellan Health, in addition to a syndicate including previous investors. Magellan is a leader in managing the fastest growing, most complex areas of health, including behavioral health, complete pharmacy benefits and other specialty areas of healthcare.
NeuroFlow for Digital Behavioral Health Integration
NeuroFlow works with leading health plans, provider systems,
as well as the U.S. military and government to enhance virtual health programs
by delivering a comprehensive approach to whole-person care through digital
behavioral health integration – an evidence-based model to identify and treat
consumers with depression, anxiety and other behavioral health conditions
across all care settings.
Key features of the behavioral health platform include:
– Interoperability: Seamless EHR and system integrations minimize administrative burden and optimize current IT investments.
– Measurement-based Care & Clinical Decision Support: NeuroFlow enables MBC at scale, keeps the patient in the center of care, and continuously monitors for a consistent connection to critical data and clinical decision support.
– Performance Management & Reporting: Recognize
the impact of your BHI program, monitoring the impact of clinical interventions
on quality and cost of care while recognizing outliers requiring program
adjustments.
– Consumer Engagement & Self-Care: personalized
experience that encourages, rewards and recognizes continuous engagement and
monitoring
Maximize Efficiency, Revenue and Reimbursements
By integrating behavioral health into the primary care setting, increasing screening and self-care plans – NeuroFlow’s BHI solution can reduce ED utilization by 23% and inpatient visits by 10%. 80% of NeuroFlow users self-reported a reduction in depression or anxiety symptoms and 62% of users with severe depression score improve to moderate or better.
Telehealth Adoption Underscores Need for Behavioral
Healthcare
With record growth in telehealth adoption and historic spikes in depression and anxiety due to the ongoing pandemic, workflow augmentation solutions and the delivery of effective behavioral health care have been identified as top priorities in the industry. NeuroFlow’s technology increases access to personalized, collaborative care while empowering primary care providers, care managers, and other specialists to most effectively support patient populations by accounting for and addressing behavioral health.
“Behavioral health is not independent of our overall health — it affects our physical health and vice versa, yet most underlying behavioral health conditions go unidentified or are ineffectively treated. Most healthcare providers are overburdened, so introducing the concept to account for a person’s mental health in addition to their primary specialty can be overwhelming and lead to inconsistent and inadequate treatment,” said NeuroFlow CEO Chris Molaro. “Technology, when used strategically, can enhance and augment providers, making the concept of holistic and value-based care feasible at scale and easy to implement.”
Strategic Partnership with Magellan
Magellan Health’s network of more than 118,000 credentialed
providers and health professionals are now poised to join NeuroFlow customers
across the country by leveraging the best-in-class integrated data and
analytics platform to meet the rising demand for enhanced mental health
services and support. By partnering with and investing in NeuroFlow, Magellan
has the opportunity to drive further adoption of NeuroFlow’s behavioral health
integration tools and drive collaborative care initiatives with its customers
as well as its vast network of credentialed providers and health professionals
across the country.
Expansion Plans
NeuroFlow will use the Series B proceeds to scale its
operations and support its growth in data analytics, artificial intelligence,
and direct health record integrations. NeuroFlow’s contracted user base has
grown 10x to over 330,000 in support of almost 200 commercial health systems,
payers, accountable care organizations, independent medical groups, and federal
agencies to provide technology-enabled care solutions.
– Shields Health Solutions and Excelera announce a major
specialty pharmacy merger that will form a combined company that consults with
700+ hospitals in 43 states, including Mass General Brigham, Yale New Haven,
Intermountain Healthcare and Henry Ford.
– The network of hospitals is designed to improve patient
care through an infrastructure that helps with things like acquiring prior
authorization for specialty drugs and staying adherent to them. It can also
lower costs for patients by negotiating lower rates from manufacturers with the
leverage of insights from 1 million+ patients in those hospitals.
Shields Health Solutions (Shields), the leading health
system specialty pharmacy integrator, has joined
forces with ExceleraRx
Corp. (Excelera), a healthcare company that empowers integrated delivery
networks, health systems, and academic medical centers to provide personalized,
integrated care for patients with complex and chronic conditions focused on
improving patient care.
Merger Reflects Growing Need for On-Site, Integrated
Specialty Pharmacies
Serving 60+ health systems and academic medical centers, the
combined organization addresses 700+ hospitals that account for the opportunity
of $30B in specialty pharmacy revenue. The use of specialty medications to
treat complex patients – those with multiple, chronic illnesses or rare, hard
to treat diseases that require close monitoring and support – is increasing an
average of 17 percent per year, and health systems across the U.S. have been
building on-site, integrated specialty pharmacies to provide comprehensive,
streamlined care for this growing population to improve outcomes. Since 2015,
the prevalence of health system-owned specialty pharmacies in large hospitals has doubled, with nearly 90 percent of large
hospitals operating a specialty pharmacy in 2019.
“On-site, integrated specialty pharmacy is the future
of complex patient care and we look forward to combining forces with Excelera
to make our impact even greater. As we have shown, this model materially
improves clinical outcomes for patients and reduces total medical expenses for
covered patients,” said Lee Cooper, CEO, Shields. “Together, our
network of more than 60 of the country’s top health systems, representing
nearly 30% of non-profit healthcare systems based on net patient service revenues,
creates an unparalleled industry-first that will enable unprecedented best
practice sharing and ultimately lead to improved outcomes for complex
patients.”
Benefits of On-Site, Integrated Specialty Pharmacies for
Health Systems
Shields and Excelera offer programs for health systems to
build, operationalize and optimize integrated specialty pharmacies, as well as
help manufacturers and payors access critical patient and drug performance
insights. With a more personalized, high-touch approach to patient care,
Shields and Excelera have found that hospital-owned specialty pharmacies
dramatically simplify medication and care management for patients and can:
– Reduce medication co-payments from hundreds, sometimes
thousands of dollars, to an average co-pay of $10
– Streamline time-to-therapy, typically from several weeks
to an average of two days
– Decrease physician administrative paperwork by thousands
of hours
– Improve medication adherence rates to over 90 percent, on
average.
Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
US wholesale giant AmerisourceBergen is to buy the majority of Walgreens Boots Alliance’s wholesaling business for around $6.5 billion in a cash and shares deal.
AmerisourceBergen will pay $6.275 billion in cash and around 2 million shares of its common stock for Alliance Healthcare in a deal to support its global distribution business.
Alliance will be able to increase the expansion of its core retail pharmacy business as a result of the transaction, which involves a business that generated revenues of $19 billion in full year 2020.
The acquisition applies to the global healthcare business, including the UK market, with the exception of China, Italy and Germany.
The deal is expected to close by the end of AmerisourceBergen’s fiscal year on 30th September according to a joint statement from the two companies.
This latest deal builds on a partnership dating back to 2013, leading to Walgreens Boots Alliance becoming the largest shareholder in AmerisourceBergen, with a nearly 30% stake in the company.
The two companies have agreed to strengthen their strategic partnership by extending and expanding their commercial agreements.
A US distribution agreement will be extended by three years until 2029 and the partnership is being expanded to include a commitment to pursue new opportunities in sourcing and distribution.
Alliance Healthcare UK will remain the distribution partner of Boots until 2031 and the companies said these agreements are expected to create incremental growth, synergies and efficiencies.
The savings from the acquisition for AmerisourceBergen will increase to an annual run-rate of $75 million in the fourth year.
The combined business is forecast to see its cash flow increase by 125% compared with AmerisourceBergen’s estimates of its stand-alone business.
The companies said that the agreement will expand distribution networks for specialty medicines such as cell and gene therapies.
AmerisourceBergen said the acquisition is not expected to have an impact on its dividend policy.
Dr. Brandon Salke, PHARM.D, Pharmacist-in-charge, Optime Care
One of the biggest challenges for biopharmaceutical companies of rare and orphan disease patient populations is optimizing disease management in a way that enhances the patient journey and improves outcomes. As these companies seek innovative solution partners, a patient-first approach that offers specialty Rx pharmacist expertise is critical for securing insurance coverage, coordinating care, ensuring compliance, and, ultimately, minimizing the daily impact of rare and orphan diseases.
In today’s challenging healthcare environment, biopharma companies need to feel confident that their products are properly and promptly distributed, and reimbursements processed quickly and correctly. The best approach is to partner with a pharmacy, distribution, and patient management organization that offers a patient-first strategy for rare and orphan disorders, as well as personalized care programs designed to maximize the benefit of the therapies prescribed for patients. The goal is to improve the quality of life for both patient and caregiver with a dedicated support system for positive outcomes and long-term well-being.
The right patient-first partner can tailorIT, technology, and data-based upon client needs, combined with a high-touch approach designed to improve patient engagement from clinical trials to commercialization and compliance.
High Touch Meets Technology
Rare and orphan disease patients require an intense level of support and benefit from high touch service. A care team, including the program manager, care coordinator, pharmacist, nurse, and specialists, should be 100% dedicated to the disease state, patient community, and therapy. This is a critical feature to look for in a patient-first partner. The idea is to balance technology solutions with methods for addressing human needs and variability.
With a patient-first approach, wholesale distributors, specialty pharmacies, and hub service providers connect seamlessly, instead of operating in siloes. This strategy improves continuity of care, strengthens communication, yields rich data for more informed decision making, and improves the overall patient experience. It manages issues related to collecting data, maintains frequent communication with patients and their families, and ensures compliance and positive outcomes. A patient-first model also hastens time to commercialization and provides continuity of care to avoid lapses in therapy – across the entire life cycle of a product.
Key Components for Effective Patient-First Strategy
A patient-first strategy means that the specialty Rx pharmacist works directly with the patient, from initial consultation, and across the entire patient journey, providing counseling, guidance, and education-based upon individual patient needs. They also develop an individualized care plan based on specific labs and indicators related to patient behavior to help gauge the person’s level of motivation and identify adherence issues that may arise.
The best patient-first partners enable patients to contact their pharmacist 24/7 and offer annual reassessments that ensure that goals of therapy are on track and every challenge is addressed to improve the patient’s quality of life. These specialty pharmacists also play a critical role on behalf of biopharmaceutical partners, providing ongoing regulatory and operations support and addressing each company’s particular challenges.
Telehealth
As the COVID-19 pandemic wanes on, it’s also important to find a patient-first partner that offers a fully integrated telehealth option to provide care coordination for patients, customized care plans based on conversations with each patient, medication counseling, education on disease states, and expectations for each drug.
A customized telehealth option enables essential discussions for addressing patient challenges and needs, a drug’s impact on overall health, assessing the number of touchpoints required each month, follow-up, and staying on top of side effects.
Each touchpoint should have a care plan. For example, a product may require the pharmacist to reach out to the patient after one week to assess response to the drug from a physical and psychological perspective, asking the right questions and making necessary changes, if needed, based on the patient’s daily routine, changes in behavior and so on.
Capturing information in a standardized way ensures that every pharmacist and patient receives the same assessment based on each drug, which can be compared to overall responses. Information is gathered by an operating system and data aggregator and shared with the manufacturer, who may make alterations to the care plan based on the patient’s story.
Ideally, one phone call with a patient can begin the process of optimizing medication delivery, insurance reimbursement, compliance, and education based on a plan tailored for each patient’s specific needs.
About Dr. Brandon Salke, PHARM.D
Dr. Brandon Salke serves as the pharmacist-in-charge and General Manager at Optime Care in Earth City, MO. He previously served as a team pharmacist for Dohmen Life Science Services, where he helped launch several new care programs and assisted in the management of clinical trial activities.
He is specialized in specialty pharmaceuticals, particularly ultra-orphan, orphan, and rare disease. Dr. Salke has been involved in all aspects of operations (planning, process integration, project management, etc.) for pharmaceutical manufacturers. This includes clinical trials to commercialization and assisting in commercial launches (and relaunch) of specialty pharmaceuticals.
AmerisourceBergen plans to buy most of Walgreens’ Alliance Healthcare business for $6.5 billion. The deal will let Walgreens focus more on its retail pharmacy and healthcare businesses.
The combination of Teladoc Health and Livongo creates a
global leader in consumer-centered virtual care. The combined company is
positioned to execute quantified opportunities to drive revenue synergies of
$100 million by the end of the second year following the close, reaching $500
million on a run-rate basis by 2025.
Price: $18.5B in value based on each share of Livongo
will be exchanged for 0.5920x shares of Teladoc Health plus cash consideration
of $11.33 for each Livongo share.
Siemens Healthineers Acquires Varian Medical
On August 2nd, Siemens Healthineers acquired
Varian Medical for $16.4B, with the deal expected to close in 2021. Varian is a
global specialist in the field of cancer care, providing solutions especially
in radiation oncology and related software, including technologies such as
artificial intelligence, machine learning and data analysis. In fiscal year 2019,
the company generated $3.2 billion in revenues with an adjusted operating
margin of about 17%. The company currently has about 10,000 employees
worldwide.
Price: $16.4 billion in an all-cash transaction.
Gainwell to Acquire HMS for $3.4B in Cash
Veritas Capital (“Veritas”)-backed Gainwell Technologies (“Gainwell”),
a leading provider of solutions that are vital to the administration and
operations of health and human services programs, today announced that they
have entered into a definitive agreement whereby Gainwell will acquire HMS, a technology, analytics and engagement
solutions provider helping organizations reduce costs and improve health
outcomes.
Price: $3.4 billion in cash.
Philips Acquires Remote Cardiac Monitoring BioTelemetry for $2.8B
Philips acquires BioTelemetry, a U.S. provider of remote
cardiac diagnostics and monitoring for $72.00 per share for an implied
enterprise value of $2.8 billion (approx. EUR 2.3 billion). With $439M in
revenue in 2019, BioTelemetry annually monitors over 1 million cardiac patients
remotely; its portfolio includes wearable heart monitors, AI-based data
analytics, and services.
Price: $2.8B ($72 per share), to be paid in cash upon
completion.
Hims & Hers Merges with Oaktree Acquisition Corp to Go Public on NYSE
Telehealth company Hims & Hers and Oaktree Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) merge to go public on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the symbol “HIMS.” The merger will enable further investment in growth and new product categories that will accelerate Hims & Hers’ plan to become the digital front door to the healthcare system
Price: The business combination values the combined
company at an enterprise value of approximately $1.6 billion and is expected to
deliver up to $280 million of cash to the combined company through the
contribution of up to $205 million of cash.
SPAC Merges with 2 Telehealth Companies to Form Public
Digital Health Company in $1.35B Deal
Blank check acquisition company GigCapital2 agreed to merge with Cloudbreak Health, LLC, a unified telemedicine and video medical interpretation solutions provider, and UpHealth Holdings, Inc., one of the largest national and international digital healthcare providers to form a combined digital health company.
Price: The merger deal is worth $1.35 billion, including
debt.
WellSky Acquires CarePort Health from Allscripts for
$1.35B
WellSky, global health, and community care technology company, announced today that it has entered into a definitive agreement with Allscripts to acquireCarePort Health (“CarePort”), a Boston, MA-based care coordination software company that connects acute and post-acute providers and payers.
Price: $1.35 billion represents a multiple of greater
than 13 times CarePort’s revenue over the trailing 12 months, and approximately
21 times CarePort’s non-GAAP Adjusted EBITDA over the trailing 12 months.
Waystar Acquires Medicare RCM Company eSolutions
On September 13th, revenue cycle management
provider Waystar acquires eSolutions, a provider of Medicare and Multi-Payer revenue
cycle management, workflow automation, and data analytics tools. The
acquisition creates the first unified healthcare payments platform with both
commercial and government payer connectivity, resulting in greater value for
providers.
Radiology Partners (RP), a radiology practice in the U.S., announced a definitive agreement to acquire MEDNAX Radiology Solutions, a division of MEDNAX, Inc. for an enterprise value of approximately $885 million. The acquisition is expected to add more than 800 radiologists to RP’s existing practice of 1,600 radiologists. MEDNAX Radiology Solutions consists of more than 300 onsite radiologists, who primarily serve patients in Connecticut, Florida, Nevada, Tennessee, and Texas, and more than 500 teleradiologists, who serve patients in all 50 states.
Price: $885M
PointClickCare Acquires Collective Medical
PointClickCare Technologies, a leader in senior care technology with a network of more than 21,000 skilled nursing facilities, senior living communities, and home health agencies, today announced its intent to acquireCollective Medical, a Salt Lake City, a UT-based leading network-enabled platform for real-time cross-continuum care coordination for $650M. Together, PointClickCare and Collective Medical will provide diverse care teams across the continuum of acute, ambulatory, and post-acute care with point-of-care access to deep, real-time patient insights at any stage of a patient’s healthcare journey, enabling better decision making and improved clinical outcomes at a lower cost.
Price: $650M
Teladoc Health Acquires Virtual Care Platform InTouch
Health
Teladoc Health acquires InTouch Health, the leading provider of enterprise telehealth solutions for hospitals and health systems for $600M. The acquisition establishes Teladoc Health as the only virtual care provider covering the full range of acuity – from critical to chronic to everyday care – through a single solution across all sites of care including home, pharmacy, retail, physician office, ambulance, and more.
Price: $600M consisting of approximately $150 million
in cash and $450 million of Teladoc Health common stock.
AMN Healthcare Acquires VRI Provider Stratus Video
AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. acquires Stratus Video, a leading provider of video remote language interpretation services for the healthcare industry. The acquisition will help AMN Healthcare expand in the virtual workforce, patient care arena, and quality medical interpretation services delivered through a secure communications platform.
Price: $475M
CarepathRx Acquires Pharmacy Operations of Chartwell from
UPMC
CarepathRx, a leader in pharmacy and medication management
solutions for vulnerable and chronically ill patients, announced today a
partnership with UPMC’s Chartwell subsidiary that will expand patient access to
innovative specialty pharmacy and home infusion services. Under the $400M
landmark agreement, CarepathRx will acquire the
management services organization responsible for the operational and strategic
management of Chartwell while UPMC becomes a strategic investor in CarepathRx.
Price: $400M
Cerner to Acquire Health Division of Kantar for $375M in
Cash
Cerner announces it will acquire Kantar Health, a leading
data, analytics, and real-world evidence and commercial research consultancy
serving the life science and health care industry.
This acquisition is expected to allow Cerner’s Learning
Health Network client consortium and health systems with more opportunities to
directly engage with life sciences for funded research studies. The acquisition
is expected to close during the first half of 2021.
Price: $375M
Cerner Sells Off Parts of Healthcare IT Business in
Germany and Spain
Cerner sells off parts of healthcare IT business in Germany and Spain to Germany company CompuGroup Medical, reflecting the company-wide transformation focused on improved operating efficiencies, enhanced client focus, a refined growth strategy, and a sharpened approach to portfolio management.
Price: EUR 225 million ($247.5M USD)
CompuGroup Medical Acquires eMDs for $240M
CompuGroup Medical (CGM) acquires eMDs, Inc. (eMDs), a
leading provider of healthcare IT with a focus on doctors’ practices in the US,
reaching an attractive size in the biggest healthcare market worldwide. With
this acquisition, the US subsidiary of CGM significantly broadens its position
and will become the top 4 providers in the market for Ambulatory Information
Systems in the US.
Price: $240M (equal to approx. EUR 203 million)
Change Healthcare Buys Back Pharmacy Network
Change
Healthcarebuys
back pharmacy unit eRx Network
(“eRx”), a leading provider of comprehensive, innovative, and secure
data-driven solutions for pharmacies. eRx generated approximately $67M in
annual revenue for the twelve-month period ended February 29, 2020. The
transaction supports Change Healthcare’s commitment to focus on and invest in
core aspects of the business to fuel long-term growth and advance innovation.
Walmart acquires CareZone, a San Francisco, CA-based smartphone
service for managing chronic health conditions for reportedly $200M. By
working with a network of pharmacy partners, CareZone’s concierge services
assist consumers in getting their prescription medications organized and
delivered to their doorstep, making pharmacies more accessible to individuals
and families who may be homebound or reside in rural locations.
Verisk, a data
analytics provider, announced today that it has acquiredFranco Signor, a Medicare Secondary Payer
(MSP) service provider to America’s largest insurance carriers and employers.
As part of the acquisition, Franco Signor will become part of Verisk’s Claims
Partners business, a leading provider of MSP compliance and other analytic
claim services. Claims Partners and Franco Signor will be combining forces to
provide the single best resource for Medicare compliance.
Price: $160M
Rubicon Technology Partners Acquires Central Logic
Private equity firm Rubicon Technology Partners acquires
Central Logic, a provider of patient orchestration and tools to accelerate
access to care for healthcare organizations. Rubicon will be aggressively driving Central Logic’s
growth with additional cash investments into the business, with a focus
on product innovation, sales expansion, delivery and customer support, and
the pursuit of acquisition opportunities.
Industry experts state that orphan drugs will be a major trend to watch in the years ahead, accounting for almost 40% of the Food and Drug Administration approvals this year. This market has become more competitive in the past few years, increasing the potential for reduced costs and broader patient accessibility. Currently, these products are often expensive because they target specific conditions and cost on average $147,000 or more per year, making commercialization optimization particularly critical for success.
At the same time precision medicine—a disease treatment and prevention approach that takes into account individual variability in genes, environment, and lifestyle for each person—is emerging as a trend for population health management. This approach utilizes advances in new technologies and data to unlock information and better target health care efforts within populations.
This is important because personalized medicine has the capacity to detect the onset of disease at its earliest stages, pre-empt the progression of the disease and increase the efficiency of the health care system by improving quality, accessibility, and affordability.
These factors lay the groundwork for specialty pharmaceutical companies that are developing and commercializing personalized drugs for orphan and ultra-orphan diseases to pursue productive collaboration and meaningful partnership with a specialty pharmacy, distribution, and patient management service provider. This relationship offers manufacturers a patient-first model to align with market trends and optimize the opportunity, maximize therapeutic opportunities for personalized medicines, and help to contain costs of specialty pharmacy for orphan and rare disorders. This approach leads to a more precise way of predicting the prognosis of genetic diseases, helping physicians to better determine which medical treatments and procedures will work best for each patient.
Furthermore, and of concern to specialty pharmaceutical providers, is the opportunity to leverage a patient-first strategy in streamlining patient enrollment in clinical trials. This model also maximizes interaction with patients for adherence and compliance, hastens time to commercialization, and provides continuity of care to avoid lapses in therapy — during and after clinical trials through commercialization and beyond for the whole life cycle of a product. Concurrently, the patient-first approach also provides exceptional support to caregivers, healthcare providers, and biopharma partners.
Integrating Data with Human Interaction
When it comes to personalized medicine for the rare orphan market, tailoring IT, technology, and data solutions based upon client needs—and a high-touch approach—can improve patient engagement from clinical trials to commercialization and compliance.
Rare and orphan disease patients require an intense level of support and benefit from high touch service. A care team, including the program manager, care coordinator, pharmacist, nurse, and specialists, should be 100% dedicated to the disease state, patient community, and therapy. This is a critical feature to look for when seeking a specialty pharmacy, distribution, and patient management provider. The key to effective care is to balance technology solutions with methods for addressing human needs and variability.
With a patient-first approach, wholesale distributors, specialty pharmacies, and hub service providers connect seamlessly, instead of operating independently. The continuity across the entire patient journey strengthens communication, yields rich data for more informed decision making, and improves the overall patient experience. This focus addresses all variables around collecting data while maintaining frequent communication with patients and their families to ensure compliance and positive outcomes.
As genome science becomes part of the standard of routine care, the vast amount of genetic data will allow the medicine to become more precise and more personal. In fact, the growing understanding of how large sets of genes may contribute to disease helps to identify patients at risk from common diseases like diabetes, heart conditions, and cancer. In turn, this enables doctors to personalize their therapy decisions and allows individuals to better calculate their risks and potentially take pre-emptive action.
What’s more, the increase in other forms of data about individuals—such as molecular information from medical tests, electronic health records, or digital data recorded by sensors—makes it possible to more easily capture a wealth of personal health information, as does the rise of artificial intelligence and cloud computing to analyze this data.
Telehealth in the Age of Pandemics
During the COVID-19 pandemic, and beyond, it has become imperative that any specialty pharmacy, distribution, and patient management provider must offer a fully integrated telehealth option to provide care coordination for patients, customized care plans based on conversations with each patient, medication counseling, education on disease states and expectations for each drug.
A customized telehealth option enables essential discussions for understanding patient needs, a drug’s impact on overall health, assessing the number of touchpoints required each month, follow-up, and staying on top of side effects.
Each touchpoint has a care plan. For instance, a product may require the pharmacist to reach out to the patient after one week to assess response to the drug from a physical and psychological perspective, asking the right questions and making necessary changes, if needed, based on the patient’s daily routine, changes in behavior and so on.
This approach captures relevant information in a standardized way so that every pharmacist and patient is receiving the same assessment based on each drug, which can be compared to overall responses. Information is gathered by an operating system and data aggregator and shared with the manufacturer, who may make alterations to the care plan based on the story of the patient journey created for them.
Just as important, patients know that help is a phone call away and trust the information and guidance that pharmacists provide.
About Donovan Quill, President and CEO, Optime Care
Donovan Quill is the President and CEO of Optime Care, a nationally recognized pharmacy, distribution, and patient management organization that creates the trusted path to a fulfilled life for patients with rare and orphan disorders. Donovan entered the world of healthcare after a successful coaching career and teaching at the collegiate level. His personal mission was to help patients who suffer from an orphan disorder that has affected his entire family (Alpha-1 Antitrypsin Deficiency). Donovan became a Patient Advocate for Centric Health Resources and traveled the country raising awareness, improving detection, and providing education to patients and healthcare providers.
An in-depth look at twelve recently released COVID-19 vaccine management solutions as COVID-19 vaccines are being distributed nationwide.
1. Microsoft
Microsoft
launches a COVID-19 vaccine management platform with partners Accenture and
Avanade, EY, and Mazik Global to help government and healthcare customers
provide fair and equitable vaccine distribution, administration, and monitoring
of vaccine delivery.
Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS) has deployed over 230 emergency COVID-19 response missions globally since the pandemic began in March, including recent engagements to ensure the equitable, secure, and efficient distribution of the COVID-19 vaccine.
2. Accenture
Accenture recently rolled out a comprehensive vaccine management solution to help government and healthcare organizations rapidly and effectively plan and develop COVID-19 vaccination programs and related distribution and communication initiatives. Expanding on Accenture’s contact tracing capability that leverages Salesforce’s manual contact tracing solution, the platform is rapidly deployable and designed to securely track a resident’s vaccination journey, from registration and appointment scheduling to final vaccine administration and symptom follow-ups.
3. VigiLanz
VigiLanz, a clinical surveillance company launched their new mass vaccination support software, VigiLanz Vaccinate provides end-to-end management of the entire vaccination process, enabling hospitals to maximize the success of mass vaccination events for healthcare workers. VigiLanz Vaccinate streamlines vaccine administration and management by making it easy for staff to register and provide consent while automating workflows for program administrators. Its real-time insights into volume needs to reduce vaccine waste, while analytics give visibility into vaccination and immunity rates at the individual, department, hospital, and system-level.
4. BioIntelliSense
UCHealth recently deployed BioIntelliSense BioButton™ Vaccine
Monitoring Solution, an FDA-cleared medical-grade wearable for continuous
vital sign monitoring for up to 90-days (based on configuration) to healthcare
workers receiving COVID-19 vaccine UCHealth’s staff and providers will wear the
BioButton device for two days prior and seven days following a COVID-19 vaccine dose
to detect potential adverse vital sign trends. Together with a daily
vaccination health survey and data insights, the wearer may be alerted of signs
and symptoms to guide appropriate follow-up actions and further medical management.
5. VaxAtlas
VaxAtlas launches a
digital platform to support the COVID-19 vaccination process making it easy for
anyone to schedule and manage their vaccinations. Through a comprehensive suite
of on-demand tools, VaxAtlas manages the process of getting COVID vaccinations
from beginning to end. The platform provides access to a national certified
pharmacy network for local appointment scheduling, recall alerts, second dose
reminders, as well as QR clearance passes for vaccine validation. VaxAtlas
alleviates the complexity associated with vaccine logistics and helps to get
people back to work and back to living their lives.
6. DocASAP
DocASAP launches COVID-19
Vaccination Coordination Solution to help healthcare providers and payers meet
the urgent demand for vaccinating the nation. DocASAP’s COVID-19 Vaccination
Coordination Solution will help providers and payers guide people through the
vaccination process with pre-appointment engagement, online appointment scheduling
and reminders, and post-appointment wellness tracking. This will help reduce
the burden on staff and call centers to manage the sheer volume and complexity
of these appointments, and better coordinate the influx so providers can
effectively deliver the needed care. DocASAP will support the phased approach
to rolling out vaccinations, beginning with front-line healthcare staff.
7. Allied Identity
Allied Identity announced the launch of Vaxtrac, comprehensive vaccination management and credentialing platform designed to aid in the local, national and international response to COVID-19 and other communicable diseases. Vaxtrac uses SICPA’s proprietary CERTUS™ service in order to ensure the security of vaccination records and credentials.
8. Net Health
Net Health has developed a proprietary web-based Mobile Immunization Tracking platform to more efficiently manage on-site
immunizations. To ensure compliance, Net Health’s Mobile Immunization
Tracking platform tracks verification and enables employee consent forms to be
electronically recorded. Immunization data and the Vaccine Information Sheet
(VIS) are pulled directly from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) database
and fields are auto-populated so clinicians do not have to manually enter data.
This ensures information in the employee record is accurate and saves time as
the clinician moves from one employee to the next.
9. Traction on Demand
Vancouver tech company, Traction on Demand,
has developed a COVID-19 Vaccine Clinic Accelerator. The accelerator helps
health authorities track all the critical details of their clinics including
type, location, staff members, and cold storage units available on-site and
applies CDC’s COVID-19 Temporary Clinic Best Practices to a
Salesforce-based mobile app, providing organizations with a digitized CDC
checklist, auditable clinic administration including a permanent auditable
record of all vaccination clinics an organization holds, critical risk
identification, and shift tracking.
10. MTX Group
MTX Group launches a
comprehensive end-to-end COVID-19 vaccine administration, management, and
distribution Solution for state and local public health agencies built on
Salesforce. The MTX vaccine management solution brings together the various
components of a COVID-19 vaccination program, including vaccine administration
and inventory management. MTX also works with public health departments to
identify necessary steps to promote vaccination adoption within a community.
The vaccine management solution is secure, portable, interoperable, and
provides data-driven vaccination program management capabilities.
11. Infosys
The Infosys
Vaccination Management (IVM) Salesforce Solution is an end-to-end offering
for automating tasks, integrating data sources, and delivering a seamless
vaccination program that offers supply chain visibility and future demand
forecasting. Disparate systems won’t work for this unprecedented health crisis.
12. Phresia
Phresia provides an end-to-end COVID-19 vaccine management solution for outreach, intake, reminder, and recall tools to increase vaccine uptake. Key features include communicating with patients about vaccine availability, send appointment reminders and boost recall, manage your waitlist, automate patient intake for vaccine visits, including consents, questionnaires, and patient education, and screen patients for vaccine hesitancy and maximize uptake by delivering personalized messaging based on those survey results.
– Cerner Corporation today announced with Xealth new
centralized digital ordering and monitoring for health systems, starting with
Banner Health, to foster digital innovation.
– Health systems can prescribe digital therapeutics, smartphones, and internet apps directly within the EHR to address areas such as chronic disease management, behavioral health, maternity care, and surgery prep.
Cerner, today announced it’s building on the recent collaboration with Xealth to offer health systems new centralized digital ordering and monitoring for clients. These capabilities are designed to help health systems choose, manage, and deploy digital tools and applications while offering clinicians access to remote monitoring and more direct engagement with patients. Phoenix-based Banner Health, one of the country’s largest nonprofit hospital systems, is one of the first Cerner clients to use the new capabilities to benefit its clinicians and patients.
Prescribe Digital Therapeutics Via EHR
With the new capabilities, health systems can prescribe digital therapeutics, smartphones, and internet applications to address areas such as chronic disease management, behavioral health, maternity care, and surgery prep. This access to a more holistic view of the organization’s digital health solutions supports the clinical decisions doctors make every day and provides real opportunities to improve medical outcomes and enhance efficiency, meet the increasing demand for telehealth and offer remote patient monitoring.
For example, the new capabilities can help simplify how
clinicians prescribe tools such as mobile mental health apps to monitor anxiety
triggers or a glucose device to help trace blood sugar levels for diabetes
patients.
Digital solutions will be available in a single location in
the electronic health record where health systems can use apps based on
clinical and financial metrics. A wide array of digital health tools is
integrated with Xealth’s offering today and the list is ever-growing. Early
examples of companies that have previously deployed in health systems using
Xealth include Babyscripts, Glooko, SilverCloud Health, Welldoc, as well as
Healthwise Inc., GetWellNetwork and ResMed that have existing relationships
with Cerner.
“As digital tools are increasingly included in care plans, health systems seek a way to organize and oversee their use across the health system. We anticipate the emergence of digital and therapeutic committees to govern digital tool selection similar to how pharmacy and therapeutic committees have historically governed medication formularies,” said David Bradshaw, senior vice president, Consumer and Employer Solutions, Cerner. “Digital health has extraordinary potential to reshape the way we care for patients and, working with Xealth, we are answering the need and helping providers create more engaging and effective patient experiences.”
Why It Matters
Digital health has great potential to make an immediate difference, especially as it relates to automating patient education, delivering virtual care, supporting telehealth, and offering remote patient monitoring. Health systems with a digital health program and strategy in place have the ability to respond faster and more efficiently.
“Now, more than ever, extending care teams to meet patients where they are is critical,” said Mike McSherry, CEO and co-founder, Xealth. “As digital health programs roll out, they should elevate both the patient and provider experience. Cerner building out a digital formulary, with Xealth at its core, is listening to its strong clinician base by delivering tools to enhance patient care, without adding additional steps for the care team.”
– Lightspeed Venture Partners, the VC behind Nest and GrubHub, is leading a $10 million round for Freespira, an FDA-cleared digital therapeutic proven to significantly reduce or eliminate panic attacks and PTSD symptoms by training users to normalize respiratory irregularities.
– In 28 days, Freespira can reduce or eliminate panic
attacks and PTSD symptoms from home with just a tablet, sensor, and custom app.
There’s no medicine with possible side effects and no need to see a doctor or
therapist in person.
Freespira, Inc.(formerly
Palo Alto Health Sciences, Inc.), a Kirkland, WA-based maker of the first
FDA-cleared digital therapeutic that significantly reduces or eliminates
symptoms of panic attacks, panic disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder
(PTSD) in only 28 days, announced it has completed a $10 million capital raise led
by Lightspeed Venture Partners. Joining
the financing round, the largest in the company’s history, were previous
investors Aphelion Capital, Medvest Capital, and Freespira Chairman,
Russell Siegelman.
Free from Panic Attacks & PTSD in 28 Days
Founded in 2013, Freespira® is the only FDA-cleared digital therapeutic proven
to significantly reduce or eliminate Panic Disorder and PTSD symptoms by
training users to normalize respiratory irregularities in just 28 days. This
4-week medication-free program can be done from the comfort of your home for 17
minutes, twice daily. Treatment is authorized and completed under the
supervision of a licensed healthcare provider and is clinically proven to
reduce or eliminate panic attacks and other symptoms of panic disorder. Freespira
uses a custom sensor to train patients to stabilize their respiration rate and
exhaled carbon dioxide levels, thereby reducing or eliminating panic attacks
and PTSD symptoms.
Recent Peer-Reviewed Studies
Numerous peer-reviewed studies have demonstrated the
clinical effectiveness and cost savings of the Freespira solution, including:
– A clinical trial conducted at the VA Palo Alto Health Care
System in Palo Alto, Calif. demonstrated the efficacy of Freespira for veterans
and non-veterans suffering from PTSD. Significant reductions in measures of
PTSD severity were achieved by 85% of subjects post-treatment, with half of
subjects reporting remission scores six months post-treatment. Patient
satisfaction was 84% at six months post-treatment, and mean patient adherence
to the treatment protocol was 77%.
– A large multi-center trial conducted by David Tolin, PhD,
Director of the Anxiety Disorders Center at The Institute of Living, and Adjunct
Professor of Psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, found that
Freespira produced a clinically significant reduction in panic symptoms 12
months post-treatment in 82% of subjects, with 84% adherence and 88% patient
satisfaction.
– A study led by Alicia Kaplan, MD at the Allegheny Health
Network in Pittsburgh found that use of Freespira not only resulted in 91% of
patients reporting significant reduction in symptoms at 12-months but also
significant cost savings for the patients’ insurance provider, Highmark Blue
Cross Blue Shield. These included a 65% reduction in emergency department
costs; a 68% reduction in pharmacy costs; and a 35% reduction in total medical
costs for treatment of the study subjects.
“We’re honored that Lightspeed, one of Silicon Valley’s premier venture firms, has joined our existing investors to help speed the commercialization of Freespira to benefit the millions of people who suffer from panic attacks and PTSD, including veterans, first responders, and increasingly, frontline healthcare workers,” said Dean Sawyer, Chief Executive Officer of Freespira. “Now that we have accumulated overwhelming evidence of the clinical and cost effectiveness of Freespira and achieved FDA clearance for its use treating both panic disorder and PTSD, we believe health plans and employers across the country will support the use of Freespira for their members and employees.”
– Ro announced it has acquired Workpath, a technology
platform that powers on-demand, in-home healthcare and diagnostics services
nationwide.
– Through this acquisition, Ro’s platform will now
uniquely bring together a patient’s doctor, pharmacy, and
diagnostics/lab–offering a personalized, end-to-end experience with no
insurance required.
– Ro is also announcing a partnership with Quest
Diagnostics, which operates more than 2,200 locations nationwide, to process
its lab tests.
Ro, the healthcare technologycompany, today announced it has acquiredWorkpath, a software platform that enables healthcare companies to offer on-demand, in-home care, and diagnostic services with a simple API. The acquisition will enable Ro to seamlessly integrate virtual and in-person care on its own platform and offer these in-home capabilities to other healthcare companies. The ability to send healthcare professionals to, and conduct diagnostic tests in, a patient’s home significantly expands the scope of Ro’s vertically-integrated platform and advances the company’s strategy of becoming a patient’s first call for all of their healthcare needs.
End-to-End In-Home Care Solution
Founded in 2015, Workpath is a technology platform that powers on-demand, in-home healthcare services nationwide. Workpath’s API enables healthcare companies to dispatch phlebotomists and other providers to perform services ranging from blood draws to vaccinations, all from the comfort of a patient’s home. The company’s full-service platform includes scheduling and dispatch software, a nationwide network of healthcare professionals, diagnostic processing and reporting, and more. Workpath is available to 95% of patients across the country and facilitates in-home healthcare services for clinical trial operators, Fortune 100 companies, and the nation’s largest diagnostic laboratories.
Acquisition Creates A New Paradigm for
Patient-First Healthcare
As part of the acquisition, Workpath will
continue to operate independently as an autonomous entity. Workpath and its API
will continue to be available to other healthcare companies, enabling them to
dispatch healthcare professionals to perform services ranging from blood draws
to vaccinations and other primary care services, all from the comfort of a
patient’s home. The company’s full-service platform includes scheduling and
dispatch software, a nationwide network of healthcare providers, diagnostic
processing and reporting, and more. Ro’s offering of Workpath’s platform will
position the combined company as an integral part of the healthcare industry’s
transition to connect the best of virtual and in-person care.
Enabling End-to-End Care
Ro-affiliated providers will leverage Workpath’s
API to order in-home care or diagnostic services for patients, greatly
expanding the scope of conditions that can be treated or managed through Ro’s
platform. In doing so, Ro will seamlessly connect a patient’s doctor, pharmacy,
and lab on its vertically-integrated platform, enabling end-to-end care from
diagnosis to the delivery of medication to ongoing care. Given that seven of
every ten healthcare decisions require blood work, Ro will start by offering in-home
phlebotomy (blood test) services with results directly delivered through Ro’s
platform.
Zachariah Reitano, Co-Founder and CEO of Ro, said: “Ten years from now, more healthcare services will be delivered online or in-home than in every hospital, doctors office, or pharmacy combined, and this acquisition will help accelerate that change. The powerful new platform we’re creating enables Ro, and countless other healthcare companies, to deliver care whenever and wherever patients need it. We look forward to welcoming Workpath to the Ro family and together setting a new standard for vertically integrated healthcare delivery.”
Financial details of the acquisition were not disclosed.
– Today, CVS Health was selected by HHS, as part of
Operation Warp Speed, to pilot the administration of a limited supply of
bamlanivimab, a monoclonal antibody therapy, with eligible COVID-19 patients
at-risk of severe infection or complications resulting from the virus.
– Under this pilot, Coram, the specialty pharmacy and
infusion care business of CVS Health, will administer the intravenous therapy
in patients’ homes or long-term care facilities to help meet the growing demand
for these new treatments.
– The pilot will be available in Boston, Chicago,
Cleveland, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Tampa, and their surrounding
communities starting Thursday, December 3.
CVS Health was selected today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), as part of Operation Warp Speed, to pilot the administration of a limited supply of bamlanivimab, a monoclonal antibody therapy, with eligible COVID-19 patients at risk of severe infection or complications resulting from the virus. The selection underscores the role of CVS Health as a diversified health services company and expands work underway with HHS and Operation Warp Speed as CVS Health also prepares to administer COVID-19 vaccines
COVID-19 Therapy Pilot Details
Under this pilot, Coram, the specialty pharmacy and infusion
care business of CVS Health, will administer the intravenous therapy in
patients’ homes or long-term care facilities to help meet the growing demand
for these new treatments. Coram and its more than 800 certified and highly
trained nurses across the country are a prime example of how CVS Health offers
diversified health services to transform health and meet people where they are
– whether in normal times or during the ongoing pandemic.
Details of the pilot include:
– Coram will begin administering 1,000 doses of monoclonal
antibody therapies for the treatment of COVID-19.
– The pilot will be available in Boston, Chicago, Cleveland,
Los Angeles, Milwaukee, Minneapolis and Tampa, and their surrounding
communities starting Thursday, December 3. Following the pilot, Coram will
scale this solution to additional markets in areas of greatest need.
– To be eligible, and in accordance with the therapy’s
Emergency Use Authorization (EUA), patients must not be hospitalized, be within
10 days of symptom onset, at least 12 years of age or older, weighing at least
40 kilograms (or 88.2 pounds), and at high risk for progressing to severe
disease and/or hospitalization.
– There is no out-of-pocket cost to the patient for this
care.
Why It Matters
As COVID-19 rates surge in many parts of the country, Coram
also has worked to help keep patients out of inpatient and hospital settings
altogether, alleviating pressure on the health care system and preserving
important hospital resources for the most critical patients. Since early
in the pandemic, Coram has partnered with hospitals to safely
transition eligible infusion patients home to help ensure hospital bed capacity
to treat COVID-19 patients. Importantly, today’s announcement also expands the
integral role of CVS Health on the front lines in the fight against COVID-19.
This includes work underway with HHS and Operation Warp Speed to administer
COVID-19 vaccines when available, as well as a national COVID-19 testing
infrastructure, which has enabled the company to perform more than eight
million tests across more than 4,300 retail testing locations and onsite at
workplaces and campuses around the country since the start of the
pandemic.
“Patients can rest assured they are receiving the best care possible through Coram in the safety and comfort of their own home or long-term care facility, and Coram is poised to continue to meet shifting health care demands as the importance and value of home-based care will undoubtedly outlive the pandemic,” added Prem Shah, Pharm.D., Executive Vice President of CVS Specialty and Product Innovation. “This established and experienced clinical service further demonstrates CVS Health’s unique ability to touch all aspects of a person’s health to make their experience more accessible and affordable.”
– CarepathRx will
acquire the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s pharmacy operations in a
$400M deal.
– The company fully
integrates pharmacy operations, expands healthcare services, improves
ambulatory access, minimizes clinical variation and creates new health system
revenue streams.
– CarepathRx serves more than 15 health systems and 600
hospitals, with more than 1,500 employees nationwide, 400 payor contracts.
Already CarepathRx has treated more than 100,000 patients.
CarepathRx, a leader in pharmacy and medication management
solutions for vulnerable and chronically ill patients, announced today a
partnership with UPMC’s Chartwell subsidiary that will expand patient access to
innovative specialty pharmacy and home infusion services. Under the $400M landmark
agreement, CarepathRx will acquire
the management services organization responsible for the operational and
strategic management of Chartwell while UPMC becomes a strategic investor in CarepathRx.
This new partnership expands CarepathRx’s specialty and home infusion capabilities. “Our partnership with UPMC and Chartwell is an important step for CarepathRx. We set out to create a new approach to pharmacy care in the market—one that is centered on the patient and that works collaboratively with both the provider and the payor of health care,” said Figueroa, chief executive officer of CarepathRx. “We welcome the team at Chartwell to the CarepathRx family and are thrilled to partner with UPMC to help us achieve our mission.”
Optimize Your Hospital Pharmacy
Operations
Founded in 2019 by seasoned health care executive John Figueroa and middle-market private equity firm Nautic Partners LLC, CarepathRx has rapidly become a leader in delivering comprehensive pharmacy solutions to patients undergoing complicated medication therapies. By focusing on the most vulnerable patients, CarepathRx is seeking to break down the barriers of typical pharmacy care and medication management. Its suite of solutions caters to patients undergoing specialty and infusion therapies, often for a variety of chronic conditions. CarepathRx works closely with partners across the health care spectrum—including health systems, community physicians, home health agencies and payors. Today, CarepathRx delivers its services to more than 600 hospitals across the country.
The transaction is expected to close
within 30 days. Cantor Fitzgerald & Co. served as financial advisor to
Chartwell in the formation of the management services organization and
partnership with CarepathRx.
Neela Montgomery, EVP & President at CVS Pharmacy/Retail
CVS Health Corporation names Neela Montgomery Executive Vice President and President of CVS Pharmacy/Retail, effective November 30, 2020. Montgomery will oversee the company’s 10,000 pharmacies across the United States. Montgomery, currently a Board Partner at venture capital firm Greycroft, most recently served as chief executive officer of furniture retailer Crate & Barrel and has nearly 20 years of global retail experience.
Frank McGillin, CEO at The Amwell/Cleveland Clinic Digital Health Company
Egbert van Acht, Executive Vice Chairman to the Board of Directors, Amwell/Cleveland Clinic Digital Health Company
The Cleveland Clinic and Amwell joint venture appoint Egbert van Acht as Executive Vice Chairman to the Board of Directors and Frank McGillin as CEO. Formed one year ago as a first-of-its-kind company to provide broad access to comprehensive, high-acuity care via telehealth, the company has made great progress scaling digital care through its MyConsult® offering. With an initial focus on clinical second opinions, the organization also offers health information and diagnosis on more than 2,000 different types of conditions including cancer, cardiac, and neuroscience issues.
Dana Gelb Safran, Sc.D., SVP at WELL Health
Healthcare industry veteran Dana Gelb Safran, Sc.D. has joined Well Health Inc. as Senior Vice President, Value-Based Care, and Population Health. In her new role, Dr. Safran will expand WELL’s uses to improve healthcare quality, outcomes, and affordability through partnerships with payers and Accountable Care Organization (ACO) providers.
Cory L. Haynes, VP, Financial Services Strategy at Talkdesk
Greg Miller, Vice President Industry Strategy, Healthcare & Life Sciences
Talkdesk®, Inc., the cloud contact center for innovative enterprises appoints Cory Haynes to lead Talkdesk’s strategy for the financial service industry and Greg Miller to lead the strategy for healthcare and life sciences. Haynes and Miller are key members of the Talkdesk industries team led by Andrew Flynn, senior vice president of industries strategy for Talkdesk.
Mark McArdle, SVP Products & Design at Imprivata
Imprivata appoints Mark McArdle to Senior Vice President of Products and Design. Mr. McArdle has more than two decades of experience in software development, Software-as-a-Service (Saas), in Cybersecurity, and advanced products for the enterprise, SMB, and consumer markets.
Jack Stoddard, Executive Chairman at Eden Health
Eden Health names Jack Stoddard as executive chairman of its board of directors. Formerly serving in COO roles for Accolade and Haven, Stoddard brings two decades of healthcare innovation and operating experience to the board position, providing leadership, wisdom, and counsel during a time of monumental growth and adoption for the company.
Saurav Chatterjee, PhD., CTO at Augmedix
Augmedix names Saurav Chatterjee Chief Technology Officer. Prior to joining Augmedix, he most recently served as Vice President of Engineering at Lumiata, Inc., where he led the engineering team that built a leading AI platform, focusing specifically on transforming, cleaning, enriching, featurizing, and visualizing healthcare data, and on building, deploying and operationalizing machine learning and deep-learning models at scale.
Philip Vecchiolli, Chief Growth & Strategy Officer, Tridiuum
Tridiuum, the nation’s premier provider of digital behavioral health solutions names Philip Vecchiolli has joined the company as Chief Growth and Strategy Officer. Vecchiolli, who brings over 30 years of experience to the new role, has a successful track record of leading business development for large and mid-size healthcare companies.
Janet Dillione, CEO of Connect America
Connect America appoints Janet Dillione as its new chief executive officer (CEO). Prior to joining Connect America, Dillione worked in the healthcare information services industry as CEO of Bernoulli Enterprise, Inc., GM of Nuance Healthcare, and CEO of Siemens Healthcare IT.
Health Catalyst, Inc. announces that current Chief Financial Officer Patrick Nelli has been named President, effective January 1, 2021. Following Nelli’s promotion to the President role, Health Catalyst has named Bryan Hunt, current Senior Vice President of Financial Planning & Analysis, Chief Financial Officer, also effective January 1, 2021.
Two additional promotions, also effective January 1, 2021, include Jason Alger, Senior Vice President of Finance, to Chief Accounting Officer, and Adam Brown, Senior Vice President of Investor Relations, to Senior Vice President of Investor Relations and Financial Planning & Analysis.
Rick Howard, Chief Product Officer at Apervita
Apervita hires health IT veteran Rick Howard as Chief Product Officer. In his role, Rick will oversee product vision, innovation, design, and delivery of Apervita’s digital platform, which enables digital quality measurement, clinical intelligence, as well as value-based contract monitoring and performance measurement.
Roberto Simon
Conversion Labs, Inc. appoints Roberto Simon to its board of directors and as the chair of its audit committee. Following his appointment, the board now has eight members, with six serving as independent directors. Mr. Simon currently serves as CFO of WEX (NYSE: WEX), a $6+ billion fintech services provider.
Dr. Isaac Rodriguez-Chavez, Ph.D., MHS, MS.
PRA Health Sciences, Inc. appoints senior FDA official Isaac Rodriguez-Chavez, Ph.D., MHS, MS, as Senior Vice President, Scientific and Clinical Affairs. He will lead the company’s Global Center of Excellence for Decentralized Clinical Trial (DCT) Strategy. Dr. Rodriguez-Chavez’s responsibilities will involve the continued growth and development of PRA’s industry-leading decentralized clinical trial strategy, regulatory framework creation, and clinical trial modernization.
Proprio appoints three global thought leaders to its Medical Advisory Board. Dr. Sigurd Berven, Orthopedic Surgeon and Professor at the University of California, San Francisco, Dr. Charles Fisher, Professor and Head of the Combined Neurosurgical & Orthopedic Spine Program at Vancouver General Hospital and the University of British Columbia, and Dr. Ziya Gokaslan, Professor and Chair of the Department of Neurosurgery at Brown University and Neurosurgeon-in-Chief at Rhode Island Hospital and The Miriam Hospital will apply their globally respected surgical and research expertise to the development of the Proprio navigation platform.
Andrew Bindman, MD, EVP & Chief Medical Officer at Kaiser Permanente
Kaiser Permanente names Andrew Bindman, MD Executive Vice President and Chief Medical Officer. In this role, Dr. Bindman will collaborate with clinical and operational leaders throughout the enterprise to help lead the organization’s efforts to continue improving the high-quality care provided to members and patients throughout Kaiser Permanente. Dr. Bindman will report directly to Kaiser Permanente chairman and CEO Greg A. Adams.
Dr. Michael Blackman, Chief Medical Officer at Greenway
Greenway names Dr. Michael Blackman Chief Medical Officer at Greenway. Dr. Blackman will further support the company’s ambulatory care customers, ensuring providers are equipped with the solutions and services they need to improve patient outcomes and succeed in value-based care.
Suki expands its leadership team with six key hires to support the company’s rapid commercial growth. Tracy Rentz, formerly Vice President of Implementation at Evolent Health, joins Suki as the Vice President of Customer Success and Operations to lead all customer operations, with a particular focus around deploying new Suki customers. Brian Duffy brings over 20 years of sales experience to Suki, joining the team as Director of Sales-East, after having most recently served as Regional Director at Qventus, Inc. Brent Jarkowski will also join Suki’s sales team this November as the Director of Sales-West, bringing over 15 years of experience in strategic relationship management. Brent joins Suki after serving as Senior Client Development Director at Kyyrus. Together, Brian and Brent will head the company’s efforts in building new partnerships across the country. And Josh Margulies, who previously served as the Director of Integrated Brand Marketing for the Jacksonville Jaguars, will serve as Suki’s new Senior Director of Field Marketing.
The startup provides pharmacy delivery apps and services for health systems and telehealth companies, enabling prescriptions to be delivered to patients in two hours or less.
