Tufts Health and Harvard Pilgrim Plan to Merge

Tufts Health and Harvard Pilgrim Plan to Merge

The Boston area has seen a lot of hospital merger and acquisition activity in recent years, some of it successful, some not. Now two not-for-profit health plans are merging, chasing the same goal of scaling up and reducing costs through streamlining administrative processes. Tufts Health Plan and Harvard Pilgrim Health Care, both based in the Boston metropolitan area, announced their merger on August 14. The new organization, which will have a new name, will be one of the largest not-for-profit health services organizations in the Northeast, serving nearly 2.4 million members in Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Rhode Island. Tufts Health Plan offers managed care... Read More »

MCOs Make Deals to Combat High Drug Costs

The rising cost of prescription drugs was part of many candidates’ campaign platforms in the 2016 national elections. The topic has not gone away, and is certainly a factor in the dearth of Big Pharma deals in 2017.  Through June 15, M&A in the Pharma sector is down 43%, to 44 transactions, compared with the same period in 2016, which had 77 transactions. Spending is also down in for the first six months of 2017. Through June 15, acquirers announced $19.2 billion in committed financing, down 66% from the same period in 2016, when approximately $56.5 billion was spent. There are deals being done, regarding this issue, but most are not M&A. In fact, several managed care... Read More »