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UCHealth Invests in 12 Colorado Urgent Care Centers

Adeptus Health, the largest and oldest network of freestanding emergency room facilities in the country, is selling a majority stake in all 12 of its Colorado facilities, and two more under construction. The buyer, University of Colorado Health System, plans to rebrand them as UCHealth ER. Adeptus operates more than 60 ERs in affluent areas of Arizona, Colorado and Texas, which treat patients who have commercial insurance. Free-standing ERs don’t have to accept Medicare or Medicaid, and thus, 85% of Adeptus’ revenue comes from commercial pay plans.  Under the partnership, UCHealth will hold a majority stake in Adeptus’ freestanding emergency rooms in Colorado. The centers will... Read More »

Ventas Buys Hospitals and Spins off SNFs

Ventas, Inc. (NYSE: VTR) had a busy week, as it paid $1.75 billion for Ardent Health Services, one of the 10 largest for-profit hospitals companies in the United States, from Welsh, Carson, Anderson & Stowe. The plan is to separate Ardent’s hospital operations from its owned real estate and sell the operations to one or more newly formed entities owned by Ardent’s current management. The same day, VTR announced plans to spin off most of its post-acute and skilled nursing facility portfolio into an independently traded REIT called SpinCo, which will own 355 high-quality, triple-net leased SNFs and other healthcare assets operated by 44 private regional and local care... Read More »

Biotech Blow-Out in 2015

Mergers and acquisitions in the biotechnology sector are soaring, and we’ve got the data to prove it. We checked our M&A database, DealSearchOnline, to find the average price per biotechnology deal for each of the past five years. In that span, 2013 posted the highest average, nearly $629 million. We ran the same test for 2015, through April 10, and voila – of the 63 deals we’ve captured so far, 40 of them had prices. This year’s average price per biotech transaction is already $879 million—the highest since we began following this sector in 2000. Read More »

Hospital Mergers Heat Up in April

Last week brought word that Boston Medical Center and Tufts Medical Center were moving ahead with merger talks and expect to have a deal by the end of this year. The parties announced they were exploring a merger last December. That news came two days after Massachusetts Attorney General Maura Healey and House Majority Leader Ron Mariano announced legislation that would give more power to the state’s Health Policy Commission in its reviews of hospital mergers and acquisitions. No such headaches exist in New Jersey, where Meridian Health Systems, which operates six hospitals, merged with financially troubled Raritan Bay Health Services Corp., a two-hospital system. Meridian is still in... Read More »

Optum Buys MedExpress

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) is still in acquisition mode. Two weeks ago its OptumRx subsidiary announced a $1.0 billion deal for pharmacy benefits manager Catamaran Corp. (NASDAQ: CTRX). Last week, another subsidiary, Optum, reached a deal for MedExpress, a privately held chain of full-service neighborhood medical centers in 11 states. Financial terms were not disclosed, but MedExpress plans to open another 25 to 30 centers in 2015. Optum plans to integrate its care management and clinical programs with MedExpress’ services. Read More »

Celgene’s Busy Week

It wasn’t until the final week in April that Celgene Corporation (NASDAQ: CELG) took the title of top deal maker for the month. The single acquisition on the books as of April 24 was its collaboration with MedImmune (NYSE: AZN) on its anti-PD-L1 inhibitor MEDI4736, with $450 million in cash upfront. On April 27, CELG announced it would pay another $110 million for Quantical Pharmaceuticals, followed two days later by two smaller licensing deals with Northern Biologics ($30 million) and Agios Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: AGIO) for $10 million. Then on April 30, it reported very rosy results for the first quarter, with total revenue up 20%, to $2.08 billion, and much, much more. Read More »

Teva Acquires Auspex for its Molecules

Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries (NYSE: TEVA) boasts that it has a portfolio of more than 1,000 molecules, which it uses to produce a wide range of generic products. Last week, the company decided it needed a few more molecules, so it agreed to pay $3.2 billion ($101 per share in cash) for Auspex Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ: ASPX), which has 61 molecules aimed at various diseases of the central nervous system. Of course, there was a special molecule that attracted Teva: SD-809, which reported positive results from its Phase 3 clinical trial last year, as a treatment for Huntington’s disease. Read More »

Another Record Falls in Q1:15

Now that the month is officially over, we can report our preliminary Q1:15 results—and it was another record breaker, at least for transactions. The 346 deals logged so far are 109% higher than the first quarter of 2014. You would think that the $104.7 billion in combined spending would set another record, but no. In Q1:09, we tracked $127.2 billion spent on 202 deals. That’s when Pfizer (NYSE: PFE) bought Wyeth for $68 billion.  Here’s the preliminary breakdown of Q1:15 — and remember, the spending is only for deals that disclosed prices. Read More »