Digital Health Data Draws Big Money

Mergers and acquisitions in the eHealth sector are surging, and data is driving some of the biggest deals in health care. Deal volume in the digital health space went from 68 transactions in 2013 to 157 announced in 2016, a 131% increase. Transaction levels remained in the double-digits from 2000 until 2012, when 103 digital deals were recorded. Since 2014, when annual deal volume reached triple-digits, M&A has grown almost exponentially. Dollar volume shot up as well, growing from annual totals in the hundreds of millions early in the century to seven-figure totals beginning in 2005. The $11.5 billion total logged in 2009 was something of a milestone. The $20.2 billion total posted in... Read More »
Digital Health Deals Sparked in 2016

Digital Health Deals Sparked in 2016

Virtually every aspect of the healthcare industry now relies on some form of technology or data to improve patient outcomes, reduce costs or readmissions, or to analyze masses of population health data in order to manage that population better. Even more pressing in 2017 is the need to secure all that data and technology. But that hasn’t slowed the pace of M&A one bit. Mergers and acquisitions in the digital health sector soared 23% in 2016, to 155 transactions, compared with 126 deals in 2015. Even more impressive, the sector posted its highest dollar volume ever, nearly $20.2 billion—a 226% increase versus 2015. However, a single mega-merger accounted for 64% of 2016’s dollar... Read More »

Digital Health Deals Strike New Heights

The digital health sector is on fire in the first half of 2016. Through June 24 we’ve recorded 82 transactions with a business-to-business eHealth company as the target. Sixteen of those were announced in June alone. (We don’t cover consumer-facing health apps or social media platforms.) In the first half of 2015, just 60 deals were announced in this sector. The final tally was 123 eHealth deals for all of 2015, a new record. It’s no stretch of the imagination to think this sector could set another record for 2016. The eHealth market of today includes electronic health records, revenue cycle management and data analytics, various mobile health start-ups from patient... Read More »

Veritas Capital Buys Back into Big Data

Big data firms are sweet targets for healthcare investors. Just last February, Veritas Capital sold Truven Health Analytics to IBM Watson Health (NYSE: IBM) for $2.6 billion. Now it’s putting some of that ROI into another big data firm, Verisk Health, the healthcare service business Verisk Analytics Inc. Verisk Health provides data services, analytics and advanced technologies to help users make smarter business decisions and reduce risk. The $820 million purchase price consists of $720 million in cash and a $100 million long-term subordinated promissory note. With Truven Health Analytics, Veritas Capital repositioned the company from a data provider with limited analytics offerings... Read More »

IBM Watson Health Buys Truven Health Analytics

Big Healthcare Data just got bigger. IBM (NYSE: IBM) has spent some $4 billion in the past 12 months to build out its Watson Health division. The latest and largest deal is for Truven Health Analytics, for $2.6 billion. Truven Health provides cloud-based healthcare data, analytics and insights to more than 8,500 clients, including federal and state government agencies, health plans, hospitals, clinicians and life sciences companies. Veritas Capital is making a good $1.35 billion on the sale of Truven, which it acquired in 2012 for $1.25 billion, from Thomson Reuters Corp. (NYSE: TRI). Truven Health’s extensive data set will be integrated into IBM’s Watson Health Cloud, creating... Read More »