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AstraZeneca Sheds Assets After its Trial Failure

by | Oct 5, 2016 8:28 pm | Biotechnology, Pharmaceuticals

AstraZeneca (NYSE: AZN) has been on the receiving end of three different purchases in the first five days of October, selling licenses to three of its non-core assets for a combined upfront payment of $450 million. Its selling spree occurred in tandem with the announced trial failure of its blood thinner Brilinta (ticagrelor), which failed to show any benefit over the standard medication for the treatment of peripheral artery disease (PAD). According to Reuters, the trial failure forced the company to abandon a $3.5 billion-a-year sales target for the drug by 2023. On October 3rd, AstraZeneca’s biologics arm, MedImmune, agreed to license the worldwide rights to Allergan plc (NYSE:... Read More »

Pfizer Sells Hospira’s Infusion Therapy Business

by | Oct 4, 2016 3:22 pm | Pharmaceuticals

Way back in February 2015, Pfizer Inc. (NYSE: PFE) agreed to pay $17 billion to acquire Hospira, Inc., a global provider of injectable drugs and infusion technologies. In early October 2016, Pfizer agreed to sell Hospira’s infusion therapy business to ICU Medical Inc. (NASDAQ: ICUI) for $1 billion in cash and stock. The company develops, manufactures and sells medical devices used in infusion therapy, oncology and critical care applications. Pfizer will receive approximately $400 million in newly issued shares of ICU Medical common stock and $600 million in cash from ICU, for a total purchase price of approximately $1 billion. Upon completion, Pfizer will own approximately 16.6% of... Read More »

Community Health Sells 4 Rural Hospitals

by | Sep 30, 2016 6:50 pm | Hospitals

Financially troubled Community Health Systems (NYSE: CYH) announced the sale of four rural hospitals on September 28, as it tries to pare down its $15 billion in debt. And more announcements are in the works. Curae Health, Inc., a not-for-profit organization dedicated to supporting rural healthcare services, agreed to take on the four facilities, three of which are in Mississippi and one in Florida.  They are Merit Health Gilmore Memorial (95 beds), Merit Health Batesville (112 beds), Merit Health Northwest Mississippi (181 beds) and Highlands Regional Medical Center (126 beds). In November 2014, Curae Health emerged as the owner of three rural Alabama hospitals being sold by LifePoint... Read More »

Hospital Deals Lag 2015’s Total

by | Sep 29, 2016 8:25 am | Hospitals, Private Equity

Hospital transactions have trickled in during the first three quarters of 2016. To date, 68 mergers or acquisitions have been announced (64 of them for U.S. hospital or health systems), although there have been many more partnerships, strategic alliances and joint ventures in the same period. For our database, those deals don’t count. Last year at this time, 79 deals were recorded, and 2015 ended with a total of 102 transactions (96 of them U.S.-based targets). Given the slowing pace of M&A activity we’ve witnessed since the second quarter, we don’t expect a sudden burst of transactions in the fourth quarter that would reach last year’s level. Spending on the... Read More »

Digital Health Deals on Track to Pass 2015

by | Sep 28, 2016 6:32 pm | eHealth

So far in 2016, eHealth is only four deals away from surpassing 2015’s total of 126, and nearly $20 billion has been spent (out of 20 disclosed prices). Nine deals have been announced in September, most of which exemplify how eHealth touches many areas of healthcare, beyond the expected revenue cycle management (RCM), electronic health records (EHR) etc. On September 15, 2016, privately-held RightEye LLC, a provider of eye-tracking technology that captures and scores eye movements and helps to predict, evaluate and improve outcomes of its users, purchased rights to two eye movement tests from the University of California, San Diego, and Virginia Commonwealth University. The GeoPref Autism... Read More »

Medical Device Sector Picks Up in Q3:16

by | Sep 27, 2016 8:33 pm | Medical Devices

In the first eight months of 2016, 80 transactions were announced in the Medical Device sector, making it unlikely this year’s deal volume would surpass last year’s total of 114 deals. As the third quarter wraps up, the sector’s deal volume has reached 90 deals: 31 in Q1, 27 in Q2, and 32 as of September 27th in Q3. If that deal making pace continues through Q4, at 2016’s average rate of 30 deals a quarter, we’ll see a 5% increase in deal volume since last year. September’s medical device deals include interventional device maker Boston Scientific Corporation (NYSE: BSX), which acquired EndoChoice Holdings Inc. (NYSE: GI), maker of endoscopic imaging systems, devices and infection control... Read More »

MACRA Is Spooking Physician Medical Groups

by | Sep 26, 2016 2:13 pm | Physician Medical Groups

With a full quarter left to go in 2016, mergers and acquisitions in the Physician Medical Group sector have caught up to last year’s total number of transactions. In 2015, 89 deals were announced. Through September 26, 2016, the sector’s deal volume has reached 88. One factor contributing to the increase in activity is the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act (MACRA) passed in April 2015. The bipartisan bill took aim at physician practices treating Medicare Part B patients, and awarded those that went with a value-based reimbursement schedule versus those that stayed with the fee-for-service model. The true impetus, however, came from the aggressive implementation... Read More »

Preliminary Data: Q3 M and A

by | Sep 23, 2016 6:54 pm | Healthcare Market Updates

There’s still one week left to go in the month of September, and the third quarter, but the trends have already established themselves. Merger and acquisition activity in health care dropped 20% compared with the previous quarter, down to 331 deals compared with 415 in Q2:16. The third quarter also pales in comparison to the same quarter a year earlier, when 411 deals were posted (-19%). Even with a week to go, it’s obvious that deal making has slowed considerably and likely won’t recover to those levels. Spending was also much lower than in the previous quarter, and the year-ago period. At the moment, $45.9 billion is on the books for Q3:16, down 48% compared with... Read More »