Leap Day Boosts February Deal Volume

by | Mar 4, 2016 9:27 pm | Behavioral Health Care, Biotechnology, eHealth, Hospitals, Laboratories, MRI & Dialysis, Long-Term Care, Managed Care, Medical Devices, Other Services, Pharmaceuticals, Physician Medical Groups, Rehabilitation

It’s Leap Year, which means February was a day longer in 2016. This year, that extra day marked the announcement of seven healthcare transactions, which raised the month’s total to a healthy 113 deals. The services sectors were more active than usual, and accounted for 65% of the total. Usually, the services side makes up about 55% to 60%. Dollar volume was healthy, too, at $27.7 billion. But given the records set in 2015, February’s dollar total ended up 35% below the same month a year ago. The deals may be getting smaller, but they’re still being made. Read More »

Software for Sleep Disorders Attracts $800 Million

by | Feb 24, 2016 8:05 am | eHealth, Medical Devices, Private Equity

Sleep-disordered breathing is big money. Anyone who has laid awake night after night beside a chronic snorer would pay just about anything for a bit of quiet, most likely. Enter ResMed Inc. (NYSE: RMD), which has built its business on medical devices to treat sleep-disordered breathing and respiratory care. The company has made several acquisitions over the years, predominently in the medical device sector (see chart below). Targets have ranged from the German firm MAP Medezin-Technologie, acquired in 2001, to the Chinese sleep-device maker Curative Medical, a more recent acquisition in 2015. Two recent transactions have focused on the digital side of healthcare delivery. ResMed paid an... Read More »

IBM Watson Health Buys Truven Health Analytics

by | Feb 18, 2016 5:25 pm | eHealth, Private Equity

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 »

2015 Health Care M&A Beats All Records

by | Jan 28, 2016 2:55 pm | Behavioral Health Care, Biotechnology, eHealth, Home Health & Hospice, Hospitals, Laboratories, MRI & Dialysis, Long-Term Care, Managed Care, Medical Devices, Other Services, Pharmaceuticals, Physician Medical Groups, Rehabilitation

It’s déjà vu all over again. 2014 was a record-breaker for health care M&A, with 1,317 transactions and spending at an astronomical $387 billion. Then 2015 came and went and, once again, we’re writing about a record-breaking number of transactions, 1,460 currently, and astronomical spending of $563 billion. Read More »

Private Equity in Health Care M&A, 2015

by | Dec 17, 2015 9:43 pm | eHealth, Long-Term Care, Medical Devices, Other Services, Private Equity

It’s been a superlative year for health care M&A overall, and private equity firms have made a significant contribution. With two (busy) weeks left to go in 2015, PE buyers have announced 129 deals, and that’s not including all the portfolio companies that were building their platforms in the various sectors. Below are some preliminary stats we’ve put together on PE activity in 2015. Private equity buyers account for 9% of the present deal volume of 1,395 transactions, which is typical in recent years. Deal value is a less substantial measure of PE activity, because the majority of deals don’t disclose financial terms. As of December 17, $9.1 billion has been... Read More »

Senior Monitoring Companies Consolidate

by | Dec 7, 2015 8:57 am | eHealth

Three-year-old Lively, a San Francisco startup, has been acquired by GreatCall, Inc. of San Diego. Lively has developed a remote monitoring system for seniors to help them age in place. Its safety watch works with a system of passive activity sensors to alert family members and share seniors’ daily routines. Lively will complement GreatCall’s suite of products for active aging, which including GreatCall Splash, Jitterbug5, Touch3 and health, safety and medical apps, including Urgent Care, GreatCall Link, MedCoach and 5Star. Financial terms were not disclosed. Read More »